


Welcome to La-La Land

by Mikauzoran



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien vs. XY Ready? Fight!, Aged-Up (26 and 28), Asexual Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Bob Roth's Bad Parenting, Challenge Accepted, Demisexual Luka Couffaine, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Friendship, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Hugo is Precocious, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Identity Reveal because XY recognizes Viperion’s butt, Kissing, Luka and XY are both butt guys, Luka is a Disaster Bi, Luka speaks Russian, Luxy, Luxy Week 2020, M/M, Mind the Headcanons, Multi, My Eyes Are Up Here, Okay. Maybe XY is a little smooth after all., Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation, Snuggling, Spending Time Together, Talking, There WERE two beds but..., Velveeta isn't a cheese I'm sorry, XY has had a crush on Luka for years, XY is a Viperion fan, XY is a car guy, XY thinks he's smooth; he is not, lukadrien, lukadrienette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikauzoran/pseuds/Mikauzoran
Summary: “I only sleep with people I’m in love with.”XY stared at Luka intently for a minute. “Okay. Challenge accepted.”Things haven’t been going well for Luka with Marinette and Adrien lately, so when he bumps into XY Roth again at an industry party after ten years and finds that the pop star has changed for the better and somehow has a massive crush on Luka, Luka’s willing to keep his options open and see where this goes. What he doesn’t count on is XY turning Luka’s world upside down with his antics.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine/XY (Miraculous Ladybug)
Comments: 106
Kudos: 66
Collections: Luxy Week 2020





	1. Eye Contact

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! My name is Mikau. It's nice to meet you! Or, if we've already met, it's lovely to see you again. Thank you very much for clicking on this little piece of ridiculousness. ^.^ I'm not exactly sure whom to blame this on. I saw some LuXY content on Tumblr (maybe by bugaboo_n_bananoir?), and I thought, "What the heck?! What is this?! This pairing would never work! They have nothing in--Oh. Oh, wait. No. No. This is fabulous. This is wonderful! I ship this now". And then I saw that they were having LuXY week, and I thought, "I want to play too".
> 
> So, yeah. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Come talk to me on Tumblr: https://mikauzoran.tumblr.com/

Going to the party had been Penny’s idea.

(“You need to get out more. I know you don’t like socializing, Luka, but networking is key in this field.”)

Luka hadn’t even gotten in the door, and he was already wanting to flee.

Reporters lined the walkway to the entrance, shouting his name, blinding him with the flashes of their cameras, yelling their questions over one another.

Luka did his best to smile and act like he was comfortable in this crazy environment. (He was not.) He drew heavily on techniques honed through years of meditation practice in order to stay calm and serene.

“Luka!” one of the reporters called. “Are the rumors about you and Adrien Agreste-Dupain-Cheng true?!”

Luka blinked, step faltering.

His heart sank.

The other bloodhounds caught the scent and took up the cry.

“Luka! Are you and Monsieur Agreste-Dupain-Cheng having an affair?”

“Is it true that you’ve been seeing one another for years behind his wife’s back?”

Two weeks prior, a paparazzo had seen Luka and Adrien meeting up at the Brasserie Lipp for dinner and gotten a shot of them saying goodbye. With Adrien’s arms around Luka’s neck and the looks on their faces as they smiled and laughed…the optics weren’t good.

Things died down a bit after Marinette made a statement that Luka was a very old and dear friend to the both of them and that her husband was in no way cheating on her.

Luka thought the whole thing had blown over. Apparently, he was wrong.

The light and the noise and the crush of the crowd was overwhelming.

With a mutter of, “no comment” to the ravenous newshounds, Luka picked up the pace, practically running for cover inside of Le Grand Paris.

It’s not like they’d understand if he tried to explain how he had been casually dating a married couple for several years now, so “cheating” and “affair” were not an accurate representation of the situation.

Luka being bi was something Paris could handle for the most part, even if they didn’t always like it. Luka being in a polyamorous, off-again-on-again relationship would break Paris’s brain. It was easier for them if Luka were a homewrecker.

He made his way to the ballroom where Bob Roth was hosting the get together for the dozens of stars currently signed to his record label as well as influential members of Parisian society.

After greeting the requisite people and being led around by Bob Roth to be introduced as the producer’s latest “find”, Luka retreated to the far side of the room where he could be a wallflower in peace.

Parties were definitely not his scene.

He eyed the open bar hard, considering.

Normally, Luka was careful with his alcohol consumption. Drowning problems in booze was, unfortunately, a bit of an issue at times in his family, and he was always mindful of not falling down that rabbit hole.

Tonight, however, social anxiety was definitely a thing on top of the dull ache in his chest dredged up by the paparazzi reminding him of his messy relationship with Marinette and Adrien, and Luka really felt like he needed a drink to take a bit of the edge off.

A server came by with a tray of champagne, and Luka decided that that was a good compromise. Enough to numb himself a little but nothing too extreme like downing vodka shots.

He sipped on his glass as he watched the antics of the other partygoers. Jagged had brought Fang, and Clara Rossignol looked like she was having the time of her life throwing a stick for him. (Though, she always looked like she was having the time of her life.)

Most everyone else was trying to stay out of the way as the crocodile bounded after his quarry.

As the night stretched on, one glass of champagne became three, and with two more hours to go on the party before it would be acceptable for Luka to escape, Luka was starting to think he wasn’t going to make it.

He felt uneasy, like people were watching him.

People _were_ watching him. That was the whole point of the evening: to be seen. A handful of respectable members of the press had been let into the party, and Luka wouldn’t be surprised if there had been tens of hundreds of pictures taken either of him or with him in the background.

Still.

It made his whole body itch.

Suddenly, the “being watched” sensation was far more acute. Someone was behind him.

Luka turned to find Xavier-Yves Roth staring at Luka’s waist.

Several thoughts raced through Luka’s slightly alcohol-addled mind, but chief among them was that XY had been ogling Luka’s butt.

He knew it looked good in the leather pants he was wearing, but the fact that it was XY checking it out…that just made Luka uncomfortable. He was tempted to dig out the old, “my eyes are up here” line, but that sounded too coy.

“Can I help you?” Luka asked tersely.

“Nah. I’m good,” XY assured without sarcasm and continued to give Luka the once over. “Nice outfit.”

“Uh…thanks,” Luka replied awkwardly, beginning to squirm. “It’s a Marinette original. I’m a friend of the designer.”

XY frowned, cocking an eyebrow as he finally met Luka’s gaze. “The wife of the guy you’re sleeping with?”

Luka pursed his lips.

This conversation was going remarkably well. Back in the old days, it would have been the kind of evening that rated as a success if no one got akumatized. Luka kind of missed akumas. They were really useful for breaking up mortifying encounters such as this one.

“Allegedly,” Luka returned laconically. “Listen, I have to—”

“—Didn’t you used to have blue hair?” XY cut him off.

Luka frowned. Did XY remember who he was? The man had always struck Luka as completely oblivious to everything that did not immediately serve some use to the blonde, so Luka hadn’t expected to register in XY’s long-term memory.

“Uh…yeah.” Luka self-consciously reached up to touch his hair. He’d dyed it back to pure black a couple years ago.

XY nodded, a dopey grin on his face. “It’s super dope. I like it better this way.”

Luka guessed that that was supposed to be a compliment. “…Thanks? …I…I like what you’ve done with yours too.”

XY’s hair was still spiked up on top, but it was shorter and actually looked more like a normal person’s hair now instead of the half-meter cornstalk growing out of his head that it used to resemble.

“Your hair looks better short,” Luka added civilly.

Why was he making small talk with Xavier-Yves Roth? What dimension of hell had he stumbled into?

XY seemed to puff up in pride at Luka’s remark. “Yeah,” he preened. “It’s super sick, yeah? The tall hair thing got old. It was time for an update, you know?”

Luka nodded agreeably, waiting for an opportunity to slip away.

“So, what are you doing lately?” The small talk continued, much to Luka’s horror. “What kind of music are you making recently?”

Luka frowned as XY hit a sore spot. “Why? Looking for something to steal—sorry. I meant _inspire_ you?”

XY’s eyebrows slowly pinched together, and his mouth formed a duck-lipped pout. “Dude. That was, like, ten years ago, and it was only the one time. I was just doing what my dad said. He’s the expert, so I figured he knew what he was talking about. I didn’t know I was doing something wrong, and I apologized and haven’t done it again,” he informed sulkily.

Suddenly, Luka felt like a very petty person. He hadn’t spoken to XY in a decade, but he’d just gone into the interaction assuming that nothing had changed, that the man was still the dumb, spoiled brat Luka had encountered when he was sixteen.

He visibly wilted, ashamed of his rash accusation. “Sorry. That was…that was really rude of me. Could we maybe start over? I’m Luka Couffaine. It’s nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, hoping to smooth things over.

Seemingly, it worked. XY’s pout instantly transformed into a wide grin, and he took Luka’s hand, shaking it enthusiastically. “XY. Your music is really ballin’. Totes dope. I’ve been following you since you were the lead guitarist in Kitty Section, and I was really excited when you went solo.”

This was the Twilight Zone. How had Luka fallen into an alternate universe where XY not only knew who he was but actually enjoyed Luka’s music? This conversation had officially become bizarre.

“Uh…Wow. You…You like my work?” Luka replied eruditely.

XY nodded, hair bobbing along. “Yeah. Typically, I don’t like that punk stuff, but—I don’t know—your music has always been different.”

“Thank you,” Luka responded, suddenly feeling off balance not just because of the alcohol he’d consumed. He genuinely didn’t know what to do with this version of XY so different from the young man he’d met once ten years before.

“You probably haven’t heard much of my stuff, have you?” XY continued with their conversation.

“I can’t say that I have,” Luka sheepishly admitted. “Maybe snatches on the radio, but I haven’t really sat down and listened to it.”

XY waved Luka’s words away. “You’d like it. It’s really good stuff nowadays. I come up with my own beats. Yeah, Dad and the mixing department clean it up before it goes out the door, but I make my own stuff. I, like, go out and listen to other people’s stuff and sit in parks and look at trees, and I get inspired. I get _ideas_ now,” he boasted.

Luka nodded supportively, sensing that this was important to XY, though, Luka had no idea why having ideas was such an achievement.

“My dad doesn’t call me an idiot even half as much as he used to,” XY confided proudly. “I’m not an imbecile anymore.”

Luka waited for XY to explain the joke, but the punchline never came, and Luka realized with horror that XY was serious. “Your father said that to you?”

XY nodded matter-of-factly. “Yeah. I used to be really stupid, and Dad never thought my work was good, but now I have more talent since I started going out and trying to make my own ideas.”

Suddenly XY’s expression became thoughtful. “I never got to thank you.”

Luka blinked, completely lost. “For what?”

“What you said to me at the TV studio that day after you and Kitty Section performed with me. …Out in the hallway by the dressing rooms?” XY reminded, looking at Luka expectantly.

Maybe it was because it had been a stressful day with the plagiarism and the akumatization and everything, but Luka was completely blanking.

“Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sure,” he bluffed, hoping not to get found out. What the heck had he said to XY ten years ago that the guy was now thanking him for?

XY’s face lit up in a smile. “What you said really got me thinking. It made a big difference, made me want to change, so…it’s thanks to you that my music’s so dope nowadays and that my dad’s taking me seriously as a musician. So, thanks.”

Luka could feel his cheeks heating up under XY’s intense gaze. He wished he could remember what he’d said. Obviously, the moment had been far more important to XY than it had been to Luka. That made Luka feel kind of bad.

“You’re welcome,” he replied earnestly. “I’m really glad that I could help.”

XY nodded enthusiastically. “And you keep helping. I was listening to your second solo album a year or two ago, the one with all the electric violin, and I came across this interview you did when it came out where you were talking about how you drew inspiration from all kinds of musical genres, and you were talking about Classical and Romantic music. I actually looked up some of the stuff you mentioned and found a lot of stuff I liked.”

If Luka had less control over himself, his mouth would have dropped open.

The image of pop idol XY listening to anything Luka had ever mentioned in an interview (where he regularly talked about music theory and Mahler and The Beatles and [Javanese gamelan music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2937xfI_kKI)) just seemed so farfetched.

“Like that Beaux Arts guy,” XY prattled on. “I listened to his Inclined Knot Music, and I thought the beat was really sick.”

XY proceeded to hum the theme from the first movement of Mozart’s [Eine Kleine Nachtmusik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1FSN8_pp_o).

“I learned that it’s not stealing if the guy you borrow from is super dead, so I took the theme and mixed it up and turned it into my own thing, and people really liked it!” XY informed excitedly. “If you want to hear my version, it’s called ‘XY’s Got Mad Ups’.”

Luka was definitely looking that up on YouTube later that night. He couldn’t help his morbid sense of curiosity. He’d clearly created a monster in inspiring XY to look into Mozart’s music, and now he felt kind of responsible for the result.

“Yeah. I’d be really interested in giving it a listen,” Luka replied honestly.

XY perked up like a puppy who had just heard his owner get out the dog food. “Really? Killer! You know, I was also really inspired by Beat-oven. You mentioned that the [Fifth Symphony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOk8Tm815lE) was your favourite?”

Luka nodded, genuinely surprised.

“Well, I found his piano concertos—”

 _“—concerti—”_ Luka’s mind automatically corrected.

“—and the first movement of his [Third Piano Concerto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIqQKGOAzdU) was absolutely trippin’. I’ve got some tracks inspired by Beat-oven pieces too that did really well, so I’m super glad you got me to look into classical music.”

“You’re welcome,” Luka repeated, unsure of what else to say. This was more like interacting with a fan than an old rival, and Luka found himself getting tripped up over and over again with every new sentence out of XY’s mouth. “I’m really glad that you got so much out of it.”

XY flashed Luka some kind of hipster hand sign. “Hey, so, I know you haven’t heard much of my work, but if you do listen to it and you think it’s good, I was thinking we should collaborate sometime.”

Luka’s eyes went wide as XY fished out a business card and a pen, writing an additional phone number on the backside, opposite his official contact information.

“Here. My personal number.”

Luka took the card and stared at it for a minute before pulling out his wallet and tucking the card inside carefully.

“I really like your chord progressions, especially your use of [deceptive cadence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX3-u51W1tk).”

Luka’s brain wrecked and caused a ten-car pileup.

Since when did XY know what a deceptive cadence was? Maybe he’d heard Luka talk about it in an interview? Penny had had Luka do a lot of interviews to get his name out. Penny had had Luka do a lot of tweeting and blogging and Instagraming. Maybe XY kept tabs on Luka’s social media?

“I was thinking we could do a mix with, like, some [Berber drumming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3y49gxU8i8) and you on electric violin? I could get a really sick beat going. I’ve got some ideas, if you’re interested.” The amount of hope shining tentatively in XY’s eyes made Luka’s stomach feel funny. The guy really, _really_ wanted to collaborate with Luka. It seriously meant _that_ much to him. What the hell?

“Yeah. Okay,” he agreed before he could stop to think that maybe he should listen to this guy’s music first before getting XY’s hopes up. “I’ll give your stuff a listen, and maybe we can talk to your father about doing something together sometime.”

XY gave a little hop as he punched the air in his excitement. “Sweet! Aw, man. That is so tight! Yeah. Definitely call me, and we can work something out.”

Luka opened his mouth to respond that he would, but he was cut off by Bob Roth shouting from several yards away. “Xavier-Yves!”

XY winced, turning to watch his father storm towards them.

“What are you doing, you imbecile?” the producer hissed quietly, grabbing his son’s arm and tugging him away from Luka.

All Luka could do was gape.

“Didn’t I tell you to make small talk and keep circulating? I haven’t seen you talk to the mayor yet. And make sure you flirt with his daughter. She’s a fan, and their money’s important. Talk to that pop princess girl too. Make sure people get pictures of you two together,” Roth instructed. “What’s her name. Poppenella? Pimpernel? Pumpernickel? You know who I’m talking about. We’re thinking of arranging a publicity stunt making it look like you two are dating. It should help boost your ratings.”

“Okay,” XY agreed docilely, even though he looked thoroughly put out by the prospect. “In a minute, Dad. Luka and I were just talking about doing a collab. I’ll go schmooze some more after we finish.”

Bob Roth’s eyes widened, and he looked back at Luka in surprise. “Oh! I’m sorry, Luka. I thought my son was just bothering you, but if you were discussing business, that’s all right,” he laughed, voice full of false cheer. “You see, Xavier-Yves is just such a fan of yours.”

“He’s not bothering me,” Luka assured, doing his best to keep his voice calm and neutral.

He had never liked Bob Roth. He had never gotten over the man’s cruelty and cut-throat attitude. He’d only signed with Bob Roth because Jagged had gotten him the deal. Luka liked Bob Roth even less now that he’d seen firsthand how the producer treated his son.

In the back of Luka’s mind, he wondered if he had a thing for blonde boys with daddy issues because he was getting the kind of protective feelings for XY that he normally only experienced with Adrien when Gabriel Agreste needed his face punched in.

Bob Roth nodded, letting go of his grip on XY’s arm. “All right, then. I’ll leave you boys to your business.” He looked pointedly at his son. “But then back to working the floor.”

“Yeah, Dad,” XY assured, shrugging the whole event off easily and turning back to Luka as Bob Roth sauntered off. “So…you’ll really give my music a listen and think about a collab?”

“Uh…Yeah,” Luka replied a little slowly, mind still occupied with the scene he’d just witnessed. “Yeah. I’ll definitely get back to you…. Is your Dad always like that?”

XY shrugged indifferently. “Sometimes he’s better. Sometimes he’s worse. He’s a smart man. He knows what he’s doing, how the business works, what the people want. He’s just doing his job, so don’t worry about it.”

Luka wanted to ask if that was really okay, doing one’s job at the expense of one’s child’s wellbeing and self-esteem. He wondered if XY was just numb to the abusive treatment at this point, nearly thirty years in or if he saw how other people were with their parents and wanted more from his relationship with his father.

Again, Luka couldn’t help but think of Adrien. He wondered if XY had cried alone in his room growing up too…if he still cried sometimes.

Maybe Luka was projecting. Adrien and Xavier-Yves were two vastly different people.

“Are you close with your mom?” Luka tentatively inquired.

XY shook his head. “Mom and Dad got divorced when I was little. I live with Dad most of the time and really only see Mom from time to time or on holidays, so we really haven’t gotten the chance to grow too close.”

He didn’t sound sad about this. He didn’t sound like he had any feelings at all on the matter. Maybe XY was incredibly well-adjusted and good at accepting things the way they were…. Maybe he had some serious baggage he’d been stuffing down for two decades.

“Well,” XY sighed. “I’ve got to go visit with other people, but it was nice talking to you.”

“Yeah,” Luka echoed, surprised to find that he meant it. “Thanks for coming to talk to me. I’ll get back to you about a collab soon.”

“Rad!” XY cheered, turning to go, waving over his shoulder at Luka as he did.

Luka chuckled and waved back.

XY stopped and, as if making a decision, turned back around. “You know. I really am glad you stopped dying your hair. Black is a really good color for you.”

“Oh. Yeah?” Luka self-consciously reached up to touch his hair once more.

XY nodded. “Mmhm. It really brings out the blue of your eyes. You have insanely beautiful eyes, you know?”

Luka had not known this.

“They’re kind of scary at times,” XY confessed, “but really gorgeous. Your eyes give me goosebumps. Your eyes kind of got lost in all the blue, so I like how the black hair really sets off how pretty your eyes are. See you later!”

And with double finger guns, XY was off to do his father’s bidding, leaving Luka completely gobsmacked because 1) XY was such a Luka fanboy, 2) XY had definitely been flirting with Luka, and 3) …Luka kind of liked it?

Or maybe he was slightly drunk and projecting his feelings for Adrien onto another blonde guy because things with Marinette and Adrien were not at all what Luka wanted them to be lately, and it was kind of driving Luka insane. Maybe it was just the frustration getting to him.

This party had definitely taken a turn for the bizarre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. There you go. Thoughts? ^.^; I hope you enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun writing this. I started this on Monday, 05/25/2020, and I wrote about fifteen thousand words on this this week. It's been insane. This is my first attempt at XY's character too. I went back and watched Guitar Vilain and Silence, so that's what I'm basing him on, but there's not a whole lot to go on, honestly.
> 
> Question: How do you all pronounce "XY" in your head while you're reading? Is it ex-why or eeks-"e"-grec? Just curious. In my head it's eeks-"e"-grec, but I watch the French version. Funny story: I just learned the other day that Lila is pronounced "lie"-la in the English dub. In French, it's "lee"-la. It means "lilac".
> 
> Anyway. Two things that really struck me from watching Silence again for characterization purposes were when Bob and XY were in the restaurant and XY said, "you know I don't ever have ideas", and then they laughed. The other was after the akuma was purified and Bob was tied to the chair and ranting, and he said, "my imbecile son", and then it cut to XY's face falling and him looking hurt. Those two parts really characterized Bob and XY's relationship and what kinds of beliefs about himself that Bob helped to teach (directly or indirectly) XY. It appears to me that Bob taught XY "you're stupid. Your ideas aren't good enough. You're not good at thinking; let someone else do it for you".
> 
> So, I'm thinking that this is going to update every other day, so you'll see me again on Monday, 06/01/2020, if all goes according to plan. I'm working on Chapter Five at the moment, so I'll at least have updates through this week.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone!
> 
> Once again, my Tumblr: https://mikauzoran.tumblr.com/
> 
> References:  
> Javanese Gamelan Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2937xfI_kKI  
> Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1FSN8_pp_o  
> Beethoven Fifth Symphony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOk8Tm815lE  
> Beethoven Third Piano Concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIqQKGOAzdU  
> Deceptive Cadence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX3-u51W1tk  
> Berber Drumming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3y49gxU8i8


	2. Heroics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Welcome back for Chapter Two. First off, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who left comments or kudos, bookmarked the fic, or even just read it. I know this is a huge rare pair, so I went into this thinking that NO ONE was ever going to read the words I’d written. I mean, I’m not very well-known in the fandom, and I don’t think that most of the other people doing LuXY even know who I am, so I really wasn’t expecting a response when I posted this. Thank you. You made me really happy. ^o^ <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy Chapter Two!

Things got weirder.

The party was scheduled to go until three in the morning, so Bob Roth had booked rooms at Le Grand Paris for those in attendance so that they didn’t have to drive themselves home or find taxis or worry about public transportation shutting down for the night.

At two o’clock, Luka dragged himself out of the ballroom and up to the fifth floor to room five-seventeen, swiping his keycard and practically stumbling in.

He’d had too much to drink, and he was already regretting it.

The lights were on, saving Luka the trouble of having to fumble about in the dark to find the switch. He made his way down the short entrance hall with one hand skimming along the wall for support. He passed the bathroom and went out into the main area where he found XY lounging on the far bed in his boxers and a bathrobe.

Luka paused, evaluating the situation, wondering exactly how drunk he was to be having this hallucination. He decided that he was, in fact, not _that_ drunk, so that had to be the real XY in his actual boxers on a bed that did, in reality, exist.

XY smiled and waved. “Hey.”

“I am so sorry I must have the wrong room,” Luka spit out in one breath, not leaving space for punctuation, as he turned on his heel and marched out.

Once safely in the hall, Luka looked down at his keycard. The little paper holder distinctly had the numbers five, one, and seven written on it.

He looked up at the plaque on the door and found that it also read five-seventeen.

Come to think of it, the keycard had worked when he’d scanned it.

Luka gave the door a perfunctory knock and waited a moment in case XY actually wanted to tie his bathrobe closed before Luka entered the room once more, announcing, “Actually, it seems like I _don’t_ have the wrong room. Do _you_ have the wrong room?”

XY had not bothered with modesty and was still posed on the bed, bathrobe hanging open. “Nope. Five-seventeen. I’m where I’m supposed to be. I bet they double booked, thinking that not everyone from the party would use their room. My dad’s thrifty like that.”

Luka pursed his lips. “Oh. Okay. I guess…I’ll go down to the front desk and explain the situation?”

He really didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to drag his carcass down to the lobby, wait for them to assign him a new room, and then trudge his way there. He wanted to collapse onto the soft, comfy bed next to the one which XY was currently occupying and fall asleep.

“Or we could just share,” XY suggested pragmatically. “I mean, there are two beds, and you look wiped, Dude.”

Luka took a very short second to consider this proposition. “If you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine with me,” XY assured. “There’s another bathrobe in the bathroom, if you want to get out of those clothes. Leather pants don’t look like they’d be comfortable to sleep in.”

“Trust me, they’re not,” Luka snorted, turning around and heading for the bathroom off of the entrance hall. “I’ll wash up real quick, and then I’ll be unconscious and out of your hair.”

“Take your time,” XY urged, enjoying the view of Luka’s backside as he trudged off.

Luka came out about ten minutes later in a bathrobe, his clothes folded neatly and tucked under his arm.

“I’ve never seen you without makeup before,” XY noted, intently taking in Luka’s features.

Luka hummed noncommittally, setting his clothes down on the dresser before making his way over to the spare bed.

“You’re still hot,” XY reported matter-of-factly.

Luka paused in the act of turning down the covers.

He hadn’t said it in a flirty or suggestive way. It was more like XY was just making a conversational statement than hitting on Luka, but Luka couldn’t help but think of the way XY had been flirting with him earlier.

Unless Luka had been completely wrong about XY’s motives for waxing poetic about how insanely gorgeous Luka’s eyes were.

“Thanks,” Luka replied politely, deciding that he was too tired to deal with this, so he simply wasn’t going to.

He got into bed and curled up on his side, back to XY and the light affixed to the ceiling in the center of the room.

“So…do you, like…have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?” XY tentatively ventured. “I mean, are you seeing someone?”

Luka couldn’t decide if this was an awkward attempt at getting to know Luka or an awkward attempt at flirting with Luka. He wasn’t really sure which he preferred at two in the morning after three glasses of champagne and two glasses of whiskey. His alcohol tolerance was down, and he was too exhausted to figure the situation out.

“I’m not seeing anyone exclusively,” Luka allowed.

“But…you’re with that Adrien guy?” XY verified, fishing.

“We sometimes have threesomes together.”

It felt freeing to finally say it aloud. For so long it had felt like a dirty secret he had to keep locked inside, unable to acknowledge. Sometimes he woke up in the arms of the two people he loved most in the world…and then he had to go home to his own life while they went back to theirs. It was like a cloud of smoke, slipping between his fingers and disappearing before he could grasp it.

“And…who’s your third?” XY wondered, morbidly curious.

“Adrien’s wife.”

“Oh,” XY whispered, mentally piecing together the puzzle that was Luka. “But…you’re not exclusive? Like, they don’t mind if you sleep with other people?”

Luka snickered bitterly. “I’ll put it this way: they’d be jealous and hurt if I saw other people, but it’s not like they have any right to stop me. _They_ are the ones who’re married. I’m just a fun addition sometimes. I don’t have to be faithful to them. What about you? Seeing anybody?”

Luka didn’t really want to be having this conversation. He wasn’t terribly interested in XY’s love life, but he felt like, if he had to answer these questions, it was only fair that he submitted XY to them as well.

“Nah,” XY sighed. “I’m not seeing anybody…unless my dad really does set up a publicity stunt and make me date that Poppy girl. It’s kind of hard to meet people you’re actually interested in when you’re famous.”

Luka considered this statement. Luka had been famous for the past five years, and, during that time, he had found it difficult to find a romantic partner not interested in him for his fame or money. Luckily, Luka had known plenty of regular people back when he was just a regular person, so, when he wanted to try to date (during the periods when he was actively deluding himself about being able to make a break from his feelings for Adrien and Marinette and have a fulfilling relationship with someone who wasn’t them), he had options.

Xavier-Yves Roth had been famous since his early teens, and, even before that, he’d been his father’s son, exposed to the limelight secondhand. Had XY ever had the chance to meet regular people and experience a normal relationship?

“But…So, you like both guys and girls?” XY prompted.

“Yeah,” Luka answered softly, wondering why he was letting XY in like this.

XY pursed his lips and continued to press, “Do you like either better?”

Luka snorted. “Honestly, Adrien and Marinette are pretty much the only two people in the world to me in that respect, and I love them both equally. Differently, but equally. I don’t really have a male/female preference. You?”

He expected XY to snort and laugh and swear up and down that he was one hundred percent male, so of course he liked women because that was probably the toxic masculinity and homophobic attitude that his father had filled his head with.

He was very, very surprised when XY answered quietly, “I kinda like guys better.”

Luka blinked and sat up in bed to turn to look at XY incredulously. “But…at events, I only ever see you with girls.”

XY shrugged. “Dad thinks it’s better for my image if I date girls. That way, girl fans will think about what it’s like to be with me while guy fans think about what it’s like to be me. Gay people are in the minority, so it’s more popular to be straight and market to straight people.”

Luka’s list of reasons to loath Bob Roth just kept growing and growing.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. But…what about what _you_ want?”

“Well…” XY replied thoughtfully. “I want my stuff to sell because my music’s good now, so it would super suck if people didn’t hear it, but, especially lately, I kind of want you too, so…”

XY shrugged.

Luka stared at his roommate, trying to rehear the words that had just come out of XY’s mouth so that he could attempt to make sense of them.

“You…You want _me_?” Luka choked in an odd mixture of terror, delight, aversion, and intrigue.

XY nodded eagerly. “Yeah. So…what do ya think? Do you wanna get drunk and have sex?”

Luka’s eyes widened as a figurative bucket of icy water was thrown upon him. “What do people usually do when you ask them that?” he couldn’t help but wonder.

XY just shrugged, unwilling to admit that Luka was the only person he’d ever asked. “Or we could just have sex, if you don’t want to get drunk. I brought some really legit tequila from Mexico, though, so you’ll be missing out.”

Luka considered for a moment whether or not XY would understand the term “demisexual” or if that would only lead to unnecessarily complicated misunderstandings and stupid malapropisms that Luka wasn’t really in the mood for at two AM.

Luka cut to the chase: “I’m really flattered that you would ask, but I only sleep with people I’m in love with.”

XY stared at Luka intently for a minute. “Okay. Challenge accepted.”

Luka’s head tipped to the side as he leaned forward and frowned. “Wait. What?”

XY steamrolled right ahead: “So, if you don’t want to have sex, do you want to maybe make out and snuggle?”

He looked at Luka expectantly, a hopeful eagerness in his eyes.

“Have you ever kissed a guy before?” Luka had to wonder.

A pouty expression came to XY’s face, suggesting that he was not happy to be found out. Regardless, he shook his head in answer.

Luka took a deep breath, realizing that this was XY experimenting with his sexuality and trying to understand himself and find out what made him happy, irrespective of what his father told him he had to do.

That left Luka feeling a little stuck. It would be kind of crumby of Luka to shut the guy down after he’d opened up to Luka and shown vulnerability. Something told Luka that, even though XY had seemingly come a long way since the last time their paths had crossed, the guy didn’t regularly show weakness or vulnerability to anyone. What if Luka said no and XY never opened up to anyone again and ended up alone forever because Luka was feeling tired and a little too drunk to be making these decisions.

A voice in the back of his mind told him that he sounded like Marinette with all of his what ifs, but…

Suddenly, he remembered a night on The Liberty, sitting on the couch with sixteen-year-old Adrien in the early hours of the morning, snuggling and watching…Luka couldn’t even remember what anime it had been now.

Adrien looking up through drooping eyelids, asking in a scared, bare voice, “May I kiss you?”

After that, Luka had vowed never to be anyone’s sexuality experiment ever again, but…

“…Okay,” he decided.

XY’s face blazed with excitement. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Luka confirmed, kicking off the sheets and making his way over to XY’s bed to sink down on top of the covers.

“Killer!” XY cheered.

“Shot of tequila first, please,” Luka requested. “Then making out. Then snuggling. Clothes stay on.”

XY nodded enthusiastically, going to fetch the bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Sounds dope.”

XY filled both of their glasses and then handed one to Luka, careful as he climbed back up onto the bed.

“Cheers.” Luka raised his glass, and XY clinked his own against it before they both downed their shots.

Depositing the glasses on the nightstand, Luka looked back to XY.

XY studied Luka expectantly, nervously.

Luka reached out slowly, gently taking XY by the jaw and pulling him in for a soft, closed-mouthed kiss.

XY quickly got the idea, and their lips began to move together, the kiss deepening fast.

All things considered, XY wasn’t a bad kisser. A little too eager at times, a little too excitable, but that was okay because Luka could tell that this kiss meant so much more to XY than to Luka. After all, hadn’t Luka been a little overeager the first time he had kissed a boy?

After a few minutes, Luka carefully maneuvered so that, without breaking the kiss, he could lie down, carefully guiding XY down after him so that XY would be on top and not feel trapped or overwhelmed if he decided he wanted to stop.

In the back of Luka’s mind, a voice that sounded like Adrien asked, “Yeah, but what if _you_ decide that you want to stop?”

Strangely enough, Luka didn’t.

Fifteen minutes in, it was actually shaping up to be a pretty good kiss. Luka could feel the alcohol blurring his mind again, making him forget the messy state his love life was in at the moment and allowing him to just enjoy the sensation of someone’s tongue down his throat.

Gradually, the pace slowed, winding down as XY settled in beside Luka, snuggling up and pressing gentle kisses to Luka’s cheek, chin, neck, shoulder.

“How was that?” XY asked nervously even as he tried to keep up a confident façade. “That was pretty ballin’, right? Hella sick, yeah?”

“That was good, yeah,” Luka confirmed. “A good kiss.”

“I thought I’d be good at it,” XY preened. “I’m pretty dope myself.”

Luka stilled. “…Was that…your first kiss _ever_?”

“Yeah,” XY replied a tad defensively. “Why?”

“I just thought that you’d have kissed girls before, so…I’m a little surprised. It’s not bad or anything, though, that that was your first kiss,” Luka rushed to assure.

XY shrugged, snuggling in closer and nuzzling Luka’s hair. “I’ve just never been interested in kissing any of the girls my dad had me date.”

A stray thought crossed Luka’s mind: _“Maybe he’s demi too”_.

That didn’t explain him wanting to sleep with Luka so soon, but…

“Why don’t Adrien and Marinette keep you around permanently?”

The question caught Luka off guard, leaving him taken aback.

“I mean, you’re really dope,” XY explained in a logical, reasonable fashion. “And you obviously love them. Do they not love you?”

He didn’t mean it cruelly, but it still hurt.

The pleasant buzz of the tequila instantly drained from Luka’s system. “They do,” he replied, voice cracking. He swallowed and tried again. “They do love me. It’s just…Adrien and Marinette are a complete universe unto themselves.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “They don’t love me as much as they love one another, so sometimes I feel like I don’t fit with them, like there’s not enough space for me even though…”

XY lifted his head to gaze questioningly down at Luka. “Even though…?”

Luka sighed, pushing himself up and sliding out of bed. He went over to the dresser where he’d left his clothes and dug out his wallet, bringing it back to the bed. He fished out a photo and handed it to XY, setting the wallet down on the nightstand and slipping back under the covers.

“That’s Marinette and Adrien’s son,” Luka explained with a sigh.

XY studied the picture of a beautiful young woman and handsome young man holding between them a toddler with lovely black hair and clear blue eyes.

It could just be that the boy resembled his mother, but…XY knew those blue eyes too well to mistake them. He’d been seeing those same eyes in his dreams since the day Luka had stopped in the hallway of the television studio to give XY a speech that changed his life.

“He looks just like you,” XY muttered reverently.

Luka’s lips pulled into a sad smile. “His name is Hugo. I see him fairly often, at least once a week unless I’m out of town touring. I babysit a lot, but it’s not the same as really being a part of his everyday life…of _their_ everyday life.”

“You’re not happy just being in a part-time relationship,” XY surmised softly.

Luka nodded, gently taking back the picture and carefully replacing it in his wallet. “They love me, but I’m not number one to either of them. Most of the time, it’s fine. What I have is enough because it _is_ love, and we _are_ a family, and I am happy, I really am. Sometimes, though…I want to pound my head against a wall because it’s _not_ enough.”

“You deserve to be somebody’s number one,” XY whispered soothingly, as if validating Luka’s frustration and hurt and emptiness.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Luka laughed ironically.

“You’re a little drunk and sad,” XY explained so that Luka didn’t have to.

“Yeah,” Luka sighed. “Yeah, I am.”

XY lowered his lips to Luka’s for a languid, lingering kiss, and Luka didn’t protest, letting it happen.

He decided not to worry about it or judge his behavior. After all, didn’t everyone, at some point, get sad and lonely and end up making out with someone they barely knew just to get a taste of human warmth and intimacy?

It was just kissing, and Luka could do a heck of a lot worse for a partner.

Luka stirred several times during the short night, and each time he briefly thought that he was at Marinette and Adrien’s. Each time after he remembered, he wondered, “What the hell am I doing?” and contemplated getting up and going to sleep in the other bed. Each time, he ultimately decided against it and snuggled in closer to XY, letting himself enjoy the feeling of another person’s presence as he shut his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

At a little after half past nine, Luka woke with a throbbing headache, and the sunlight streaming in through the window would not allow him to get back to sleep.

If the sound of running water in the bathroom was anything to go by, XY was in the shower.

Luka contemplated his next move.

On the one hand, he kind of wanted to slink out and never see XY again because Luka had been a little drunk, and he vaguely remembered talking about Marinette and Adrien and Hugo, and that was _never_ a good thing when Luka was in one of his melancholy moods (which had _definitely_ been the case the previous night).

On the other hand, he also kind of recollected XY admitting that he had never kissed a guy before, never kissed _anyone_ before, and even though the blonde was kind of dumb and seemingly indifferent about most things, Luka was betting that XY was experiencing some sort of feelings about the make out session and snuggling. It would be a jerk move for Luka to just run out after that.

With a sigh and some effort, he leveraged himself out of bed and onto his feet, grabbing the notepad and pen from the bedside table to write a quick note: “Sorry I had to dash. It was nice talking with you. I’ll call you soon about the collab.”

That accomplished, he put the note underneath XY’s phone so that it visibly stuck out but wasn’t in danger of being blown away.

He dressed in the clothes he’d worn the night before, made sure he had his wallet and his phone, and headed out.

He dropped the keycard in the return box next to the elevator and strode through the lobby of Le Grand Paris toward the front doors, coming to a halt as he noticed the flock of reporters buzzing about the entrance like a murder of crows, hoping to snap photos of celebrities from the party the night before taking the walk of shame.

Luka really didn’t want to go out there. He was hung over, tussled, and not in the mood for anyone to ask about his supposed affair with Adrien Agreste-Dupain-Cheng. He was kind of afraid of them asking with whom he’d spent the night at the hotel, afraid of them accusing him of cheating on Adrien on top of being a homewrecker.

He decided to wait it out a bit in the sitting area, hoping the crowd would thin and he’d be able to make his escape unmolested. He waited fifteen minutes, but the mob showed no signs of dispersing.

“Oh, hey! I’m glad I caught you,” XY called out, hustling over to Luka. He looked slightly out of breath, a little flustered.

“Oh, hey,” Luka greeted, feeling awkward. “Sorry for running off. I have a meeting this afternoon that I really wanted to get some things done before, so I was hurrying home, but there’s kind of a herd of reporters out front, so…”

Luka looked hopefully towards the entrance only to have the optimism kicked out of him when it appeared that the pack had only grown.

“I was hoping they’d go away if I waited them out a bit,” Luka sighed.

XY frowned in confusion. “Why don’t you just go the back way?”

Luka blinked dumbly. “Back way?”

“Yeah. Come on. I’ll show you.” XY motioned for Luka to follow as he headed back to the elevators and pushed the down button. “Tell your car to pull into that alley behind the hotel.”

“Uh…” Luka bit his lip. “I don’t have a car. But it’s fine; I’ll just get a taxi.”

XY clicked his tongue. “Dude. Don’t you have money now? I thought you weren’t poor anymore.”

Luka’s brow creased slightly in annoyance at the resurgence of a flash of the old XY. “Just because I have money doesn’t mean I spend it recklessly. Normally, I drive a motorcycle, but last night I got a cab to drop me off.”

XY shrugged, completely missing Luka’s defensive tone. “Meh. No sweat. You can just borrow one of mine.”

Before Luka could protest, XY pulled out his phone and shot off a text. “My driver will be there in, like, two minutes. Pretty dope, huh? I’ve got three drivers,” he boasted.

Luka was not impressed. Maybe it was the hangover, but XY was starting to rub Luka the wrong way again…except…he was being rather nice, showing Luka the way out and getting Luka a ride…even if he did it so obnoxiously.

XY started to prattle on about his miniature fleet of cars, and Luka sort of tuned out, mostly missing the substance of what XY was saying but still nodding along to the words and adding “oh, really?”s and “wow”s in the pauses. That seemed to satisfy XY.

Thankfully, they reached the back door in under ten minutes, and the car was ready and waiting to take Luka home.

It was then that he felt a little bad for being so short with XY. The guy really had done him a favour…and was a good kisser.

“Here we are. George will make sure you get home.” XY motioned to the car as if he were unveiling…well…a car, but as if he were on a game show or something.

“Thank you,” Luka replied with genuine gratitude. “I appreciate it. You really saved the day.”

“All in a day’s work, Citizen,” XY assured as he flexed comically, showing off his muscles in a cartoonish way that made Luka wonder whether or not XY were serious.

Luka gave a soft chuckle, thinking, _“What a dork. At least he’s cute.”_

The thought kind of caught him by surprise.

XY’s expression transitioned into what could probably qualify as serious for him as he turned back to Luka, asking hopefully, “I’ll see you again soon, yeah?”

Luka was a little taken aback by XY’s sincerity. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll give your music a listen and call you about a collab. For sure.”

XY’s face exploded into a firework of joy.

“Rad!” he cheered, leaning in and planting a sloppy kiss on Luka’s cheek. “I’m super stoked!”

Luka could only nod and wave as he went over to the car, climbing into the backseat in a daze as he tried to sort out what exactly was happening in his life.

In his distracted state, he accidentally gave the driver the address of The Liberty instead of the flat he lived in half of the time.

He didn’t stress about it. He had bigger issues to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I realize that I’m treating a crack pairing pretty seriously, but what do you guys think? I’m bad at writing crack. It has to be relationship drama or fluff with me. There will be light, fluffy, humorous moments throughout the story (like, Chapter Four is ridiculous), but there will also be serious parts too. I’m really working on XY’s character development, so I hope you’ll enjoy what I have in store.
> 
> I’ll see you again on Wednesday, 06/03/2020. Thanks for reading!


	3. Collaboration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I hope you’re all doing well. Welcome back for today’s installment of Welcome to La-La Land. "Collaboration" is actually the prompt for Day Four. Today is supposed to be "Style Swap", but we're saving that for Chapter Five because I need to do some more plot and character development before the confrontation between XY and Adrien that I have planned for "Style Swap". Incidentally, Chapter Four will be "Kwami 'Swap'".
> 
> I hope you enjoy Chapter Three!

Luka couldn’t believe it.

While he still didn’t necessarily _like_ XY’s music, he had to admit that it was definitely more listenable nowadays. No longer was it trite, banal, and annoying. It was still repetitive, but the repetition was more like that in the works of [Philip Glass](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M73x3O7dhmg) or [John Adams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA19NDIfXaQ) where it _meant_ something and gradually evolved and moved, unfurling like a flower on a time-lapse film. It was catchy, modulating to explore different key areas before finding tonal resolution.

It still wasn’t anything Luka would choose to listen to over, say, Pink Floyd, but he did find himself humming snatches of XY’s tunes periodically after listening to them.

The thing that had him the most incredulous was that XY had actually looked into some of the composers that Luka mentioned in various interviews and took inspiration from their work. It wasn’t the plagiarism of old but the acceptable practice of quotations taken from other works just like well-known composers had been doing in the genre for hundreds of years now.

And XY had taken the themes, the snippets, and modified them himself. He sequenced motifs up and down, inverting them and truncating them. Clearly, XY had been paying attention that one time in an interview when Luka had gone on a fifteen-minute tangent about the theme of the first movement of [Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOk8Tm815lE) and how Beethoven had taken the handful of notes in his theme and reconfigured them over and over to create astounding variety, lyricism, and emotional impact.

XY was nowhere near Beethoven’s level, but he had still managed to take quotations from classical music as well as original themes he had seemingly come up with himself and employ a similar process to what Beethoven had done so that the music changed and grew out of itself like Pegasus springing from the head of Medusa.

Luka thought that maybe a collab would be possible after all. Now, he just had to call XY and make the arrangements.

…But how did you call the guy who’d gotten you akumatized a decade ago whom you’d also made out with the previous week? The closest thing he’d ever had to a normal interaction with XY was the conversation at the party, but that hadn’t exactly been quote-unquote “normal”.

Did he just dial the number XY had given him and say, “hey, this is Luka Couffaine calling about the collaboration you wanted to do”? Pretend like the saliva swap and the snuggling and the talking about Luka’s messed up relationship with Adrien and Marinette and their son hadn’t happened?

Did he just play it cool? Keep it professional?

Did XY expect something from Luka? Was the kiss purely an experiment, or was XY thinking that some kind of relationship was going to happen between them? XY had said that he’d wanted Luka. What did that mean? Was it purely sexual?

Why had Luka let himself get into this complicated situation?

He’d been trying to be supportive of a guy attempting to figure out his sexuality in his late twenties…and XY was hot when he wasn’t saying stupid or insulting things. He had dumb hair, but he was attractive, and he’d been kind of nice with all the things he’d said about admiring Luka’s music. And Luka had been feeling down, and the alcohol hadn’t helped, and Luka had just wanted someone to kiss him senseless and help him forget that he wasn’t always happy with life.

Luka could feel himself on the verge of doing something stupid like inviting XY over to supposedly talk about their collaboration but really to see if they’d end up making out again. At the very least, maybe XY would say some more nice things like how he liked Luka’s chord progressions or how Luka had gorgeous eyes.

Luka sighed as he slumped onto the couch and stared at his phone as if he hoped it would give him answers.

Maybe he should ask Siri.

“Siri, what am I doing with my life?” Luka queried, fully expecting the robotic voice to come back with online articles for the boardgame Life or some kind of chicken recipe.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Siri replied in a tone that could pass as apologetic if you squinted.

“That makes two of us,” Luka chuckled wryly. “Thanks anyway, Siri.”

He took a deep breath and dialed Marinette’s number.

“Luka!” she greeted brightly. “Hey. How’s it going? Hold on. Let me put you on speaker…. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” he assured, a smile coming to his lips merely at the sound of her voice. “Hey, Chanson.”

“I was just getting Hugo ready for his bath,” she explained and then lowered her voice as she addressed her child. “Gogo, it’s Uncle Luka on the phone. Can you say, ‘Hi, Uncle Luka’?”

“Papa!” Hugo cried with joy, and Luka could practically see his son lifting his arms up for the phone, thinking they were FaceTiming and wanting to see the picture.

Luka could also practically see the way that Marinette was wincing at the epithet.

“No,” Marinette gently corrected, urging, “It’s ‘Uncle Luka’.”

“Papa!” the two-year-old shouted again.

“Hi, Gogo,” Luka greeted warmly, wishing that he could see his baby’s face. “You know, Marinette, I don’t mind that he calls me that.”

“ _I_ do,” she sighed, voice high and tight. “I wish Adrien hadn’t taught him that. What if he calls you that in public? People are going to think I’m a slut! They’ll think I cheated on Adrien, that our marriage is in trouble. I need people focusing on my talent, Luka, not my love life. If my brand is ever really going to take off, if I’m ever going to prove myself…if I’m ever going to get out of the shadow of my husband’s father’s brand and prove I’m not just riding on Adrien’s coattails…”

“Chanson,” Luka cooed. “Hey. Take a deep breath and relax, all right? You are so amazing, and the whole world is going to realize that someday,” he comforted. “You’ve just got to keep hanging in there, okay?”

“Maman?” Hugo called in concern, tugging at her pant leg.

Marinette took a deep breath and picked him up.

“Right. It’s okay. Maman is okay,” she shushed, bouncing her son and moving him from side to side. “It’s just stress. I’ve got a deadline coming up.”

Hugo frowned, trusting the anxiety that was coming off her in waves over her reassuring words. Even though he was young, Hugo was very attuned to people’s feelings.

“Thank you, Luka,” Marinette added belatedly. “Sorry. I’m kind of a mess. Adrien’s doing Hamlet, and he won’t be home until late, so I’m trying to cook dinner, get Hugo cleaned up, and work on this project, and it’s not happening.”

“It’s okay, Marinette. You don’t have to be a superhero all the time, you know.”

She let out an ironic laugh. “Luka, I’ve had to be a full-time superhero since I was fourteen. It gets kind of hard to turn that mentality off after a decade.”

“Point,” he conceded. “But you know what you’ve got at your disposal?”

“What?” she hummed.

“A team,” he reminded. “Why don’t I come over and give Hugo his bath and make dinner while you get some work done?”

“Oh, Luka,” Marinette breathed, sounding genuinely touched. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. But thank you. You’re too good to me.”

“Chanson, I am sitting around my apartment feeling like a wreck. Please let me come over and be useful. I want to take care of you.”

Marinette was easily sold on the arrangement, and it was a nice evening.

Marinette got her work done while Luka got to spend quality time with his son and the woman he loved. They had a peaceful dinner together, and then Luka played with Hugo for a bit before putting him to bed.

Luka had intended to go home afterwards but ended up staying the night.

Adrien got home a little after midnight, traces of stage makeup still on his skin as he slipped into bed, snuggling up to Luka and wrapping himself around Luka from behind.

Luka returned to his flat after breakfast and immediately despaired at the silence and solitude of the place.

He thought about calling XY and asking him out to coffee.

He actually fished out the business card XY had given him and dialed the number, but the call went to voicemail.

Luka covered his disappointment with professionalism: “Hey, this is Luka Couffaine calling about a possible collaboration. If you could give me a call back, we’ll discuss details.”

He thought about going out to get a coffee at a café by himself just to get out of the house, but the idea no longer seemed appealing.

“Dude, you live on a boat? That’s, like, hella whack!” XY exclaimed, and Luka couldn’t discern whether that was a compliment or a slight.

“It’s technically my mother’s,” Luka explained. “I have an apartment over in the sixteenth arrondissement,”

—not far from Adrien and Marinette’s house—he omitted.

“but I grew up here and still come and go pretty much as I please. My sisters—my biological sister and her wife—my sisters still live here, though.”

XY nodded as he stepped down off of the gangplank and onto the deck, surveying his surroundings. “It’s kind of a dump.”

Luka cringed, reminding himself that even though XY was hot and had improved personality-wise over the years, he was still completely tactless and oblivious. It wasn’t his fault he’d been brought up poorly and didn’t know that he wasn’t supposed to say things like that.

“My mother’s name is Anarka. We believe in chaos, leaving junk lying around, and affogatos,” Luka informed, motioning for XY to follow him down below deck.

XY frowned. “Like those green fruit things?”

Luka was surprised that XY knew that an avocado was a fruit. Perhaps it was just a lucky guess. “Affogatos are an Italian dessert where you pour espresso over gelato…and sometimes add amaretto. My mom’s a big fan. She dated this Italian guy once and totally got hooked on them, so now they’re kind of a family tradition. Like hiding chocolates in each other’s socks for Valentine’s Day.”

XY continued to stare at Luka, completely nonplussed. “Your family is weird.”

Luka shrugged, leading XY into the main cabin and motioning for him to have a seat on the wraparound couch. “All families are weird. The truly weird ones are the ones that aren’t.”

XY looked like he was still trying to puzzle that one out when Luka asked, “May I get you something to drink?”

“Yeah, I want an avocado,” XY declared.

Luka didn’t bat an eye. “With or without alcohol?”

XY shifted on the couch, looking almost uncomfortable. “Without. I don’t want—I don’t think we should be drunk today,” he elaborated. “You know. Because we’re working and stuff.”

Luka nodded, mentally noting that he needed to be sober the next time he kissed XY.

He added an additional note concerning the fact that he was thinking about a next time.

“Two affogatos without alcohol coming right up.”

As he started the espresso maker and moved to get out the gelato and glasses, Luka inquired, “…Did you get the chance to listen to those pieces I texted you about?”

XY (his left arm hooked around the back of the couch so that he could twist and watch Luka making the drinks) nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I did. You picked some really good songs for us to take as inspiration. I think we could get a really good blend of our styles going if we kind of pattern our mix on elements of those songs. Like the Tarantula one.”

It was really Saint-Saëns’s [Tarantella](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpxCREPeo4c), Opus Six, but “tarantella” literally meant “tarantula”, so Luka was willing to let it slide.

“I really dug the theme from Tarantula. If we take the theme and kind of rework it and speed it up, I think it would be a sick bassline. Like, kind of like…” XY paused, a guarded expression coming to his face, as if he were afraid of Luka judging him or shooting down his suggestion. “Have you ever heard DJ Jack’s remix of [Pink Elephants on Parade](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAYffxceyTA)?”

“I can’t say that I have,” Luka admitted, carefully pouring the espresso over the gelato. “Could you pull it up?”

“Yeah, sure,” XY agreed happily, getting out his laptop and hopping on YouTube for the track. “[This part](https://youtu.be/HAYffxceyTA?t=52),” he indicated about fifty seconds into the song. “I was thinking a really driving, pounding bass would be good.”

Luka nodded, considering the idea as he brought over the affogatos and set them down on the makeshift coffee table. It wasn’t exactly his style, but that wasn’t the point of the collaboration.

“Yeah, that could be good,” he encouraged, taking a seat on the couch beside XY.

XY looked relieved as he pulled up his sound editing software. “I was actually messing around with the idea last night so I’d have something to show you.” He pressed play on a track labeled “hairy spider beats” and looked expectantly at Luka.

He let Luka listen for about twenty seconds before nervously asking, “What do you think?”

XY’s mix was still audibly related to Saint-Saëns’s theme, but it was much more “inspired by” than “plagiarism”. He’d taken the notes (sometimes turning them around on themselves or dropping them down a third, sometimes rearranging, sometimes splitting apart) and sped them up, giving them a driving, electronic pulse.

“That actually sounds pretty neat,” Luka replied sincerely. “I can tell you’ve really come a long way as far as music theory and composition, Xavier-Yves. Nice work.”

XY beamed at Luka’s praise, his heart swelling with pleasure and pride. “It was nothing,” he assured, playing it cool. “I mean, I am hella dope after all. Music theory has nothing on me. I kicked its butt.”

“Yeah,” Luka agreed with a chuckle. “I can see why people like your music nowadays. It’s still not really my favourite genre, but I can tell you’re onto something.”

XY hesitated before curiously inquiring, “…Why did you call about collaborating if you’re not really a fan of what I do?”

Luka shrugged, training his eyes on the laptop screen. “I don’t know. Listening to your music, I just kind of felt like there might be something there, so I decided to give it a chance and see what happened.”

XY nodded slowly, studying Luka’s expression in profile. “All right. Good answer.” He turned his attention back to the project at hand. “So. I was thinking, we could use this or something like it as the base and layer other stuff over it. Like…you know in that Corn on the Cob song you sent me—”

[Danse Macabre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM). Saint-Saëns again, Opus Forty. It was one of Adrien’s favourites.

“—how in the beginning it’s really quiet as the clock strikes midnight, but then all hell breaks loose as the dead rise from their graves and start partying?”

“Yes?” Luka was intrigued to find out where this was going.

In Danse Macabre, about thirty seconds in, after everything up to that point had been pianissimo, the dynamic suddenly shifted to forte, and the loud, powerful notes really blew the listener away. Luka remembered that that part had been very striking the first time he’d heard the piece.

“I was thinking we could do something like that. Not the same notes,” he explained, “but the same effect. We could have the song pulsing along, but then, all the sudden, the bass drops, and we wait a beat, and then you come in really loud with—I don’t know—whatever you end up using if you want to go with your guitar or maybe the violin or, I mean, what _don’t_ you play?”

Luka blushed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Well, there’s a difference between being able to make an instrument produce sound and actually being proficient. I can play simple melodies on a wide variety of instruments, but I really only consider myself able to play the guitar, violin, and piano.”

XY snorted and rolled his eyes. “Dude, you’re definitely selling yourself short, but whatever. If you can make an instrument produce sound or play a simple melody or whatever, I can record it and splice it up into a killer mix. No one’s going to know that you’re not ‘proficient’ by your own standards.”

Luka hummed thoughtfully. “Point. I’m used to creating music that has to be reproduced live, so I didn’t think—” He cut himself off abruptly as an idea occurred to him. He turned to look at XY with wide, hopeful eyes. “Do you think we could use a [glass armonica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica)?”

XY tipped his head to the side. “What’s that?”

“Go back to YouTube, please,” Luka requested, practically buzzing with excitement. He never got to use this instrument for anything, but it had such a cool sound.

He instructed XY in what to search for and what to click on, and not a minute later, XY was staring at the screen, watching the [demonstration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKlRUvk9zc) in amazement.

“Dude,” he breathed. “It sounds like the souls of the dead being all spooky up in our business. We have _got_ to fit that in somehow. At the very least, it would add some neat harmonies.”

Twenty minutes of watching videos featuring glass armonicas later, they got back to their collaboration piece.

“You know, another thing I’d like to fit in if we can is a quotation of the [Dies Irae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDJTN8L1JT0),” XY remarked, completely knocking Luka for a loop.

“What?” he asked, thinking he’d misheard.

“The Dies Irae,” XY snorted. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve talked about it in several interviews, and it’s quoted all over that Tatter Tots song you sent me the other day to prep for our collab.”

[ _Totentanz_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nVmFlSV1ok). Franz Liszt, S. 126 (because Liszt didn’t use opus numbers).

“Sorry. Right,” Luka confirmed. “Sorry. I was just…”

…surprised that you, one, knew what the Dies Irae was called; two, pronounced it correctly; three, butchered Totentanz’s title; and four, actually listen to me when I talk.

“…astounded by what a good idea that is,” Luka recovered, realizing that his true thoughts were either rude or showing his hand too much about how much it meant to Luka that XY had paid that close attention to Luka’s interviews.

“You have a lot of good ideas, Xavier-Yves,” Luka added, watching a cute pink tint rise in XY’s cheeks.

“You bet I do.” XY puffed out his chest slightly. “I didn’t used to, but now I do. I have a lot of good ideas because I’m not an imbecile anymore.”

Luka felt his stomach twist slightly, recalling the way Bob Roth had talked to his son at the party the week before.

It reminded Luka of the way Adrien had internalized the erroneous beliefs that he was needy and whiny and difficult after years of hearing Gabriel perpetuate those lies. Adrien only believed it because it was what Gabriel had taught Adrien about himself, either directly or by implication.

Luka could see how Bob Roth calling his son an imbecile for years on end might ingrain the belief into Xavier-Yves’s psyche too.

He took a deep breath, reached out, and rested a hand on XY’s forearm. “Hey.”

XY’s eyes went wide like sundials as his gaze locked with Luka’s.

“You were _never_ an imbecile,” he informed gently yet firmly. “You were just in a situation where no one ever gave you the opportunity to show off what you could do, and that’s not your fault.”

XY gulped and then forced himself to look away before the urge to kiss Luka got any stronger. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right…. So…the Dies Irae…”

“Right,” Luka agreed, slowly retracting his hand. “The Dies Irae…”

Hours flew by as they worked on their project, and, before they knew it, their stomachs were growling.

“Would you want to go get dinner?” XY asked tentatively, trying to get a feel for where they stood with one another. “With me, I mean. My treat, since you supplied the snackage and refreshments today. I owe you for that avocado. That thing was good; I see why your family believes in them.”

“Right?” Luka chuckled, partially out of genuine amusement but also to buy a little time.

XY was definitely asking him out on a date. What was he supposed to say to that? He’d gone into this whole collab thing with the intention of keeping an open mind and seeing what became of it, but… What was he doing? He didn’t know. He legitimately didn’t know what he was doing with his life, so if XY just wanted random make-outs when convenient, maybe that was fine, but if XY were serious, if he had any kind of feelings for Luka… Luka didn’t want to lead XY on. After all, he wasn’t emotionally available for an actual relationship and all that involved, so…

He took a steadying breath, getting his apology together in his head before he opened his mouth and replied, “Sure. I would be down for hitting up a bistro or something, if _you’re_ paying.”

XY’s face lit up just enough for Luka to realize that XY was expecting something to come of this—whatever it was. Friendship?— _acquaintanceship_ between them.

Luka needed to be careful.

…But he’d really enjoyed kissing XY after the party. It had been nice to know that Luka had been the only person on XY’s mind. He hadn’t had to share XY with anyone like he did when he was with Marinette and Adrien.

But if this really was XY’s first experience with romance with someone he was legitimately interested in, Luka needed to keep his head on straight. He was an absolute mess, and he knew it, and if he didn’t keep his wits about him, he was going to ruin the concept of love for XY.

That was kind of a daunting responsibility.

Dinner was actually fairly normal, like any other dinner he’d had between friends…sort of. At least, it didn’t feel like a _date_. Well, besides the part where XY had insisted on driving and opening the car door for Luka. While the gesture had seemed romantic at first, Luka was starting to suspect that it was really because XY didn’t want anyone touching the car besides him.

It was a hideously purple [1982 DeLorean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMC_DeLorean) with gullwing doors, and it was XY’s baby.

Apparently, XY was a car person. Luka learned this when he happened to make a comment about the car over dinner and was then treated to a fifteen-minute-long gushing rant about automobiles.

It was a learning experience, and Luka, who didn’t really care so much about cars, didn’t have much to contribute.

Thankfully, after fifteen minutes, XY realized that Luka hadn’t said anything in a while and thought to ask about Luka’s hobbies. Luka talked about [Tolstoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy) and [Dostoyevsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky), and he could tell he was going a little over XY’s head, but XY asked questions and seemed like he genuinely wanted Luka to keep talking, so Luka figured it was okay.

It wasn’t really a “normal” dinner between friends, but it didn’t feel like a date either.

They returned to the Liberty afterwards so that XY could pick up his belongings, and as he was packing up his laptop, he hesitantly remarked, “So…the other night…”

Luka tensed. “…Yeah?”

XY licked his lips, tentatively looking up to study Luka’s expression. “The kiss.”

Luka squirmed slightly, fingers itching for a guitar to strum to calm himself. “Yeah?”

“You remember that?” XY inquired nervously.

Luka winced. “I wasn’t _that_ drunk.”

XY shrugged. “I mean…but you _were_ drunk, so—”

“—I remember,” Luka cut him off before the misunderstanding could go on any longer. “I remember, and I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what I was doing. I voluntarily kissed you.”

Whether or not that had been a good idea, that still remained to be seen, but Luka felt he’d been sober enough to consent to a kiss, and he didn’t want XY worrying about that issue.

“Oh,” XY replied thoughtfully, looking back down to his laptop, strapping it into his satchel. “Okay. So…you knew what you were doing, and you…you wanted to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Luka answered with conviction, leaving no room for doubt.

XY breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Because I didn’t think of it at the time, but I was thinking about it later, and my dad always tells me not to do anything with girls when they’re drunk because that leads to lawsuits, but I started thinking that I shouldn’t have kissed _you_ when you were drunk either, even though you’re not a girl.”

“Normally, that’s a good practice to follow,’ Luka confirmed. “But I wasn’t drunk. Not _that_ drunk…. But, yeah. Don’t kiss drunk people in the future,” he sighed, beginning to rub at the bridge of his nose.

“So…” XY slung his satchel over his shoulder and studied Luka carefully. “If you hadn’t been drunk, would you still have kissed me?”

Luka blinked. He didn’t know.

If he hadn’t been drunk and tired and feeling kind of down…maybe he would have gone down to the lobby and asked at the front desk for his own room. Maybe he would have stayed but turned down XY’s proposed make-out and snuggle session.

Luka couldn’t honestly say.

He grimaced and answered helplessly, “Maybe?”

XY nodded, taking a deep breath and letting that response settle in. “All right.”

“Sorry,” Luka mumbled, shame burning in his cheeks. He could tell that he was royally screwing this up, and he felt awful.

He was a bad person for dragging XY into his complicated relationship with Adrien and Marinette.

“It’s all right,” XY sighed, sounding bummed.

Luka scrubbed at his face with a hand. “No. It’s not. I’m sorry. I was kind of a wreck the other night. I’m kind of a wreck in general. I’m sorry.”

“Nah,” XY assured, waving away Luka’s apologies. “I mean, I was kind of kidding myself. You’re…You’re _you_ after all.”

Luka dropped his hand from his face and frowned, unsure if he should be getting defensive. “What does that mean?”

XY shrugged. “Like, you’re all smart and stuff. We don’t have a lot in common, not even our music, so… It was kind of dumb to think you’d be interested in me. But it’s cool, so whatever.”

XY turned to go, but Luka caught him by the arm.

“Xavier-Yves, it’s not like that,” Luka rushed to explain, not knowing quite what to say, only that he needed to say _something_. “It’s not… I’m not… I mean, I’m not _that_ smart.”

XY snorted, rolling his eyes. “Dude. At dinner you told me how you’d learned Russian so that you could read thousand-paged books. For _fun_.”

“Well, _you_ taught yourself how to build cars,” Luka volleyed, grasping at fog.

“Yeah, but I’m not _smart_ ,” XY scoffed, pulling his arm away from Luka. “I can’t talk about literature and art and stuff like you.”

“Xavier-Yves, there are many different types of intelligence,” Luka huffed in frustration. “Just because you’re not book-smart, that doesn’t mean you’re dumb, and who’s to say that my type of intelligence is any better or worse than yours? You have your own strengths, so don’t discount them just because they’re not the same as mine. If we were on a drive and broke down in the middle of nowhere, your type of intelligence would be a hell of a lot more useful than mine.”

XY stared at Luka for a beat, taking all of this in. Slowly, he began to nod. “All right. Okay. Soooo…?”

He looked at Luka expectantly.

Luka looked down at his feet but then forced himself to look back up and maintain eye contact. “So…I think you’re attractive and kind of interesting, and I’d like to get to know you better.”

XY’s cheeks started to glow a soft, rosy tint. “O-Oh yeah?”

Luka nodded. “Yeah. I’d like to hang out again.”

XY gulped. “So…could that maybe translate to you eventually kissing me sober?”

A wave of guilt washed over Luka.

He had ruined this guy’s first kiss.

Luka took a breath and stepped in, pressing his lips lightly to XY’s. He lingered for a moment but pulled back before XY could get over his surprise and take things any further.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t sober the first time,” he whispered. “Maybe this could eventually become something, but I’m an emotional mess right now, so I don’t want to lead you on or turn this into some kind of friends with benefits thing if you’re looking for a serious relationship. I’m sorry, but I just want to be honest with you.”

XY nodded neutrally as he stepped back. “Yeah…. Okay. I get you. I…all right.” He sighed, running a hand through his spiky locks. “Honestly, I’m just kind of glad to know where I stand with you. I can work with being attractive and interesting.”

His ego was quickly bouncing back as he readjusted his satchel on his shoulder and moved toward the door, turning back to shoot finger guns at Luka. “I’m still planning on making you fall in love with me. See you later!”

Luka stared at XY’s retreating back until he disappeared abovedeck.

Juleka found her brother ten minutes later, still standing there and contemplating his life choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be noted that I actually asked Siri, "Siri, what am I doing with my life", and that was her answer. I thought, “This is perfect. The writing gods have smiled upon me”.
> 
> Also, Adrien is an actor, if you’re not familiar with my headcanons. ^.^
> 
> Okay, so XY’s “wordplay” in this chapter doesn’t work in French. I know that. For the first one, he really is actually thinking of the English word “avocado”. For “Tatter Tots” and “Corn on the Cob”, he actually says the words in English. As you will find out in Chapter Four, it is my headcanon that XY spent the first ten years of his life growing up in the US, so English is his first language, so the wordplay works. Okay? Okay. ^.^
> 
> “All families are weird. The truly weird ones are the ones that aren’t.” – Luka is kind of alluding to the beginning of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina here: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Maybe the allusion isn't on a conscious level, but it is my headcanon that Luka’s a Russian literature buff, so it’s definitely in his subconscious…kind of like how it was in mine when I wrote this, not intending to allude to Tolstoy, but, then, upon re-reading, I could hear the echoes of Tolstoy in my work. Crazy how that works. You just absorb some stuff into your subconscious like that. ^.^;
> 
> Shout out to my ballet instructor Amanda for introducing me to the Pink Elephants remix. There was a tap class before my ballet one, and that was the song they were dancing to, so I heard it ad nauseam while waiting for my class to start all term about two years ago.
> 
> Okay. I’ll stop talking now. I hope you liked the chapter. Thank you very much for reading. I will see you again on Saturday, 06/06/2020. (Incidentally, it is my headcanon that that’s Marinette’s birthday.)
> 
> References:  
> Philip Glass Metamorphosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M73x3O7dhmg  
> John Adams The Chairman Dances Foxtrot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA19NDIfXaQ  
> Beethoven Fifth Symphony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOk8Tm815lE  
> Tarantella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpxCREPeo4c  
> Pink Elephants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAYffxceyTA  
> Pink Elephants “This part”: https://youtu.be/HAYffxceyTA?t=52  
> Danse Macabre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM  
> Glass Harmonica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica  
> Glass Armonica Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKlRUvk9zc  
> Dies Irae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDJTN8L1JT0  
> Totentanz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nVmFlSV1ok  
> DeLorean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMC_DeLorean  
> Tolstoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy  
> Dostoyevsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky


	4. Kwami "Swap"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I hope you're having a nice day. Thank you again to everyone who's supporting this story by commenting, bookmarking, and leaving kudos. I appreciate every single one of you reading this because it means I'm not writing in vain.
> 
> I hope you enjoy Chapter Four!

“Dude. I can’t believe you’ve never had nacho cheese,” XY snorted, sounding personally insulted at this failure on Luka’s part.

Luka winced. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t worry. I’m coming over there to fix this,” XY assured. “Where are you? The Liberty? Your place?”

“My apartment, but—”

“—No buts,” XY cut him off. “Six-Strings, this is an emergency. I’ll be right there.”

XY rang off, and all Luka could do was wait. He’d learned over the past two months of hanging out with Xavier-Yves Roth that once XY got an idea in his head, he was going to act upon it, and no one could stop him.

Luka got up off of his couch and went to change into something more flattering than the laundry he’d been lounging around the flat in.

“What kind of cheese is this?” Luka frowned at the golden liquid drowning the tortilla chips.

XY shrugged and replied with a full mouth, “[Velveeta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velveeta), I think.”

Luka blinked, pulled out his phone, and opened up a Google search.

“…Velveeta is not a cheese,” he hissed a minute later once he’d read the Wikipedia article.

XY frowned. “Sure it is. America is known for this stuff. It’s even more popular than [American cheese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheese).”

Luka pinched the bridge of his nose, imagining how Plagg would shriek if he found out. “I have a friend who would be personally offended if he heard you call this cheese. Like, he’d go on _the_ rant.”

XY waved away Luka’s protestations. “Try it already. It’s delicious.”

With a sigh, Luka picked up a chip laden with the cheese-adjacent substance and brought it to his lips. It definitely wasn’t as bad as he’d been expecting, but the suspect origin of the product kind of unsettled him. He preferred his food fresh and from an identifiable source. Maybe he’d been spoiled on getting his food from street markets and local cheese mongers and butchers, but this super-processed, plastic-looking not-cheese kind of weirded him out.

“It’s okay,” he allowed, taking another bite and trying to get over himself. “Thank you for sharing.”

“‘Okay’?” XY snorted indignantly. “Dude, this is a delicacy from my homeland. It’s more than just okay. Your taste buds are whack.”

Luka paused with another chip halfway to his mouth, and a glob of the “cheese” dribbled off the side, landing with a splat on the kitchen table. “Wait. Your homeland? But…you’re French.”

XY’s eyebrow shot straight up into his hairline. “Dude. I’m American.”

Luka blinked. “No, you’re not. Xavier-Yves, your _name_ is French. You speak French. You’ve lived here your whole life.”

“Uh, noooo.” He sang the word on an upswing. “Six-Strings, what’s my dad’s name?”

Luka frowned. “…Bob Roth?”

It suddenly occurred to him that that wasn’t a typical French name.

“Right.” XY nodded. “My mom’s French, but my dad is American. He had to take French in high school, and when his class went on a trip to Paris, he fell in love with the place, so he was back and forth a lot after that. That’s how he met my mom.”

“Oh,” Luka remarked, suddenly feeling rather dumb for never having known this about a guy he’d been periodically making out with for two whole months.

“I was born in the Bronx and didn’t move to France until I was ten. Why do you think my French sounds so funky?” XY laughed at himself. “My mom spoke to me in French a little when I was a kid, but my parents divorced when I was really young, and she moved back to France, so I didn’t start learning French for real until I was ten. I know I speak it all the time now because I’ve pretty much lived here the past twenty years, but it’s not my first language. I didn’t learn it at home, so it’s not, you know, natural like it probably was for you.”

“Oh,” Luka repeated, seeing XY’s occasionally odd speech patterns in a new light.

Luka knew from his experiences learning Russian and English that no matter how good you got at a second or third language, it was never quite the same as speaking your mother tongue.

A thought occurred to Luka: “But…wasn’t it hard, transitioning from school in the US to school in France, if you didn’t speak French?”

XY gave a mirthless snort. “Hell yeah, it was. I had to go to special classes the first few years, and by the time I was ready to join the French school system, kids my age were way ahead of me, so I got put with a class of younger kids.”

Luka winced, trying to imagine how ostracizing that must have been to be dumped in a country where he didn’t speak the language, didn’t have any friends his age, didn’t have a supportive parent.

“I’m sorry. I bet that was awful,” he mumbled hollowly, not sure what else to say.

He felt bad for sometimes thinking that XY was kind of dumb. Luka had thought that maybe XY wasn’t inclined to academia and that his father hadn’t helped matters, but from the situation that XY described, it sounded like things had been stacked against him from the start. No wonder XY hadn’t thrived in that situation.

XY nodded, scooping up more yellow gloop onto a chip. “I _hated_ it. I quit school as soon as I could when I was sixteen, and then I started focusing on my music for real—well…that wasn’t really until I was eighteen, after the incident with you, but…sixteen was when I started putting out tracks and made my debut and everything.”

“I don’t blame you for quitting,” Luka hummed, picking up a tortilla chip and tapping it against the plate to get some of the excess goo off. “I probably would have quit as soon as possible too…. Do you ever think about going back to the US?”

XY shrugged. “As much as I miss America, Paris is kind of my home now. I go back to visit every year, and I’ve toured there before for stretches, but I think I’m happy in Paris.”

He gave Luka a look that felt almost soft as he added, “My life is here.”

“Yeah,” Luka agreed. “I could visit other places, but I couldn’t stay away too long. My family is here…and all the people I care about.”

XY nodded. “…Speaking of your fam, they’ve never had nacho cheese either, have they?”

“Prune, I’m sorry to slight your cultural heritage, but you’re not feeding my family this stuff. Juleka will hate you,” Luka warned, trying to cut things off before it got to that point.

“Hate me _more_ ,” XY corrected. “Rose and your ma would probably get a kick out of it, though.”

Luka hummed as he picked up another chip and tapped off some of the cheese-impersonator. “Maman is part Scottish on her mother’s side, so she grew up eating gross things like [sheep offal wrapped in stomach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis). She probably wouldn’t have a problem with this…uh…Velveeta…substance. Rose, however, being a Frenchwoman, might be offended that this product is masquerading as cheese.”

XY shrugged. “I’ll make nachos for Anarka to try, and the rest of us can have Taco Tuesday. Rose is a little carnivore. She’ll love it.”

“Taco Tuesday?” Luka repeated, tipping his head to the side.

“Yeah. It’s like a religious holiday in America for people who don’t have a religion. Every Tuesday we have Mexican food,” XY explained.

Luka frowned, mentally questioning the authenticity of the “Mexican” food but afraid to challenge XY again. “Everyone in the US does this?”

XY nodded. “It’s a big deal. They make t-shirts.”

Somehow Luka had missed this aspect of US culture.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” XY exclaimed suddenly. “After we clean up, remind me that I have a surprise for you.”

The surprise turned out to be leather pants.

XY hijacked Luka’s bathroom and came out wearing leather pants with a cyan, teal, and dark green pattern.

It was a pattern Luka knew well, and not only because he was romantically involved with the designer.

“They’re based on Viperion’s suit!” XY informed needlessly, doing a little turn to show off the backside.

XY had a magnificent backside, and the leather pants only flaunted this fact.

“You know. The snake hero?” XY pressed, and Luka realized that he was waiting for a response.

“Yeah. I remember him,” Luka assured, admiring the way the material clung to XY’s thighs.

It was an aesthetically pleasing sight.

“You really rock those, by the way,” Luka added, knowing the praise would be appreciated.

As expected, XY puffed out his chest and strutted with a little more confidence and attitude.

“Yeah, I do look pretty dope, don’t I?” He crowed.

“Very dope,” Luka affirmed, checking out XY’s calves.

In all honesty, Luka found that a person’s butt was the physical feature that most attracted him after he’d fallen for someone emotionally. Marinette did this butt wiggle that made Luka lose his mind, and Adrien in skinny jeans was akin to a religious experience.

XY definitely had a nice butt.

“That dude was always my favourite,” XY remarked, pulling Luka from his thoughts. “I always thought Viperion was super cool.”

“Y-You did?” Luka could feel his face starting to color.

“Mmhm.” XY turned again and started on another lap of Luka’s living room. “I was really excited when Jagged mentioned that his niece made these Viperion-inspired pants. I got a pair for you too.”

All the warm fuzzies immediately fled from Luka’s system.

Maybe XY wouldn’t make him put them on now.

“I want to see you in them,” XY quickly squashed that hope, going over to his bag and pulling out a pair for Luka. “Go change,” he instructed, tossing the pants so that Luka had no choice but to catch them.

“Thanks,” Luka replied, attempting to sound excited. “That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Luka headed to the bathroom to change, hoping that XY wouldn’t recognize him just from the lower half.

“Niiiiiiice!” XY cheered, giving Luka a wolf whistle as he came back into the front room. “Give us a turn. I want to see that tush.”

“Oh my gosh,” Luka groaned, covering his face with his hands as he turned around as asked.

XY stiffened, staring dumbly at Luka’s butt. He bit out a guttural curse.

Luka dropped his hands and turned to look at XY in concern. “What? What happened?”

It took XY a minute to form coherent sentences. “Just… Could you…? Could you turn around again and walk away?”

Luka slowly turned and strode away from XY.

XY clapped a hand over his mouth and cursed again.

“What’s wrong?” Luka demanded, beginning to panic as he went over to XY on the couch.

XY’s face was so red that he looked like he was going to spring a nosebleed at any second.

He shook his head. “Just…I’ve spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Viperion’s butt.”

Luka’s hand paused en route to XY’s cheek. He blinked slowly.

XY gulped, keeping his hand clamped firmly over his mouth. “You can go ahead and deny it, if you want, but…you were Viperion, weren’t you?”

Luka opened his mouth but then closed it. “…I’m willing to bet that that’s the first time anyone’s ever had their secret identity outted by their behind. Obviously, you can’t tell anyone.”

XY cursed again. Internally, he was jumping up and down because the hero he’d had a massive crush on for the longest time was none other than his boyfriend. He was dating a superhero!!!

“Xavier-Yves,” Luka called, redirecting his attention. “I’m totally serious. You have to promise not to tell.”

XY nodded vehemently.

Luka sighed, sinking down on the couch next to XY and running a hand through his hair.

A thought occurred to XY: “It’s not weird that I’ve stared at pictures of your butt, is it?”

Luka contemplated this briefly but decided that he wasn’t one to judge, considering the amount of time he himself had spent ogling Adrien and Marinette.

He shrugged. “No. I mean, that would be kind of unfair of me, especially since I was just staring at _your_ butt as you paraded around in those pants.”

XY burst out in a fit of giggles. “No way! Seriously?”

“Yep,” Luka came clean, admitting to his attraction. “You have a nice butt.”

XY squealed in delight, making Luka chuckle.

“…Can I…” XY bit his lip. He was feeling deliriously happy, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin it, but… “Can I stay the night?”

Luka gave a slight start. He opened his mouth to reply, but XY cut him off.

“—Sorry! I know you don’t sleep with people you’re not in love with, and that’s fine. That’s not what I’m asking,” he rushed to explain. “I’m asking…do you maybe want to have movie night and then make out and snuggle?”

Luka took a deep breath and considered for all of five seconds before he nodded. “All right.”

It sounded like exactly the kind of evening that Luka wanted to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell that this is the humor chapter? ^.^; But also kind of serious and character-development-y. I can do both! (I think I can do both. I really hope I’m actually humorous.)
> 
> So. XY’s nickname for Luka, “Six-Strings”, is a reference to the six strings on a guitar, but I was looking at pictures of Viperion, and it looks like his lyre has six strings too. Though, apparently that’s not a standard number for lyres according to the internet? Apparently, they usually come with four, seven, or ten? Anyway. The nickname in French would be “Six-Cordes”, I believe. Someone who has more confidence in their French abilities than I do, that’s the word for “string” that you would use if you meant “guitar string”, right?
> 
> By the way, I apologize to all of the people in the US whom I’ve offended by poking fun at the US national cheese-objects. It’s all in good fun, and the US does make actual quality cheeses too. I’m kind of like Luka in this chapter; I’ll definitely eat processed food, but, in an ideal world, I would much prefer farmers’ markets and artisan fairs where I can talk to the person who made the product and find out about where it comes from. I realize that that may not be a thing everywhere, though. Anyway. Sorry again. Please be assured that if you like Velveeta or American cheese, I love and support you. I hope we can still be friends.
> 
> I believe that I saw somewhere that Bob Roth was based on a Canadian music producer? Citation needed. Anyway, I decided to make him from the US.
> 
> Concerning Luka’s nickname for XY, “prune” means plum in French (the colour and the fruit). I think “prune” can also mean a dried plum too, but they have other words for that. “Pruneau”, I think? Anyway. Luka means “prune” as in the colour purple/plum…for obvious reasons. It’s kind of XY’s colour.
> 
> Question: Has anyone come across a story where a character was outted by someone recognizing their butt, or am I alone in the corner of shame for having had this idea? ^.^;
> 
> Anyway. Thank you very much for reading, guys. I'm actually still in the process of writing the next chapter, so I'm not sure when I'll have it out. I was hoping to update Tuesday, 06/09/2020; Thursday, 06/11/2020; and Saturday, 06/13/2020, but we'll see if any of that actually happens. Thanks in advance for your patience with me. Take care, guys!
> 
> References:  
> Velveeta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velveeta  
> American Cheese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheese  
> Haggis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis


	5. Style Swap Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay in getting out the rest of this. I wasn't expecting to be so busy with Lukadrien June (because I wasn't planning on /doing/ Lukadrien June in the first place, but here we are), but I finished writing my contributions for that Sunday night, and I spent this week working on LuXY. I'm writing the last scene of the last chapter now. I've still got editing to do, but I'll be able to release the rest of this story over the coming week. Please see my end note on the update schedule.
> 
> Style Swap ended up being really long, so I broke the chapter up into two parts, thus the extra chapter added to the chapter count. Style Swap was originally supposed to be Day Three, but I wanted Style Swap to be the confrontation between Adrien and XY, so I had to switch the days around a bit. That being said, are you ready for some drama?
> 
> Enjoy!

Adrien was still used to getting up at an ungodly hour from his modeling days, so he woke before Luka and hopped in the shower.

He’d brought his own clothes for the weekend in his overnight bag, but he raided Luka’s closet for a hoodie just for fun. He missed Marinette—currently in Milan on business—and the comforting scent of Luka’s clothes did wonders to calm his separation anxiety.

Adrien stopped to poke his head into the guestroom on his way to the kitchen. Technically, it was Luka’s music room, but they’d put a bed for Hugo in between the harp and the drum set so that their son could easily sleep over without advanced planning.

Hugo was sound asleep, his deep breaths audible from Adrien’s position in the doorway.

Satisfied that all was well, Adrien continued to the kitchen where he cut up some of the fruit that they’d bought together at the market they’d taken Hugo to the day before. Next, he set about preparing four slices of [egg in the basket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_in_the_basket) like he’d learned years ago from Anarka.

He divided the slices between two plates and partitioned the fruit salad into two bowls. He loaded it all up onto a tray along with cups of water and juice as well as a generous chunk of [Edam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edam_cheese) for Plagg before carrying it all back to Luka’s bedroom to serve his lover breakfast in bed.

“You’re amazing,” Luka chuckled, running a hand through his already thoroughly tussled hair.

“I know,” Adrien snickered, leaning in for a kiss. “When I’m not busy being a heartthrob actor, I’m a good little househusband.”

“I wish you were _my_ househusband,” Luka sighed.

“I _could_ be,” Adrien hummed as he snuggled up next to Luka. “…if you would just move in with us already.”

Luka shook his head. “Marinette’s too worried about her public image. She thinks openly being in a polyamorous relationship would damage her career, and, honestly, I can’t say that she’s wrong.”

Adrien clicked his tongue. “She’s not right either. There are plenty of queer people in fashion. Maybe a little scandal would even help get her name out there more. I just…I want my family under the same roof. Whatever the media makes of it, we’ll deal with it together. It’ll be fine.”

“Maybe,” Luka agreed halfheartedly, imagining the simultaneous paradise and hell of being with Marinette and Adrien all the time.

Yes, he’d be with the two people he loved most, but he’d also be reminded of how much more they loved each other than they loved him all the more too, and he’d have nowhere to go to escape.

That wasn’t even taking into account the XY situation. Luka had been making out with the pop star with increasing frequency for three months, and he was afraid that he’d somehow caught serious feelings for XY.

Adrien deflated, seeing that he wasn’t going to win the war that day. “Think about it,” he pleaded softly. “I really want this, and if you think that it’s something you want too, I’ll talk Marinette into it.”

Luka didn’t respond right away, and Adrien took that as a rejection of the idea.

He sighed.

Luka leaned in, depositing a feather-light kiss on Adrien’s lips and nuzzling his hair. “I’ll think about it,” he promised, already knowing what the answer would be.

After breakfast, they got Hugo up and fed, and then Luka headed for the shower while Hugo and Adrien watched Les Aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir in the front room.

Hugo was curled up on the seat of the couch next to Adrien, asleep again before they’d gotten five minutes into the episode, but Adrien let the show keep playing for background noise in the otherwise quiet flat.

They’d just gotten to the part where legally-distinct-Nino got akumatized over legally-distinct-Gabriel not allowing legally-distinct-Adrienne to have a quinceañera (…because apparently Adrienne’s mother was from Mexico, so that was a thing…because artistic license? Adrien didn’t really mind. He looked gorgeous as a girl, and a quinceañera was just the kind of quirky thing Émilie would have done. She _adored_ learning about other cultures and celebrating holidays Adrien had never heard of until she’d taught him) when there was a knock at the door.

Adrien frowned, pausing the TV and carefully getting up so as not to disturb Hugo. He peeked through the peephole and had to stifle a groan.

The _other man_ was out in the hallway.

Adrien took a deep breath, pasted on his most agreeable smile, and opened the door.

“Good Morning. It’s Xavier-Yves, isn’t it? I’ve heard so much about you from Luka. I’m Adrien Agreste-Dupain-Cheng. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

XY stared at the other blonde dumbly, not taking the proffered hand to shake.

“It’s _XY_. What the hell are _you_ doing here?” he finally growled.

Adrien contemplated slamming the door in XY’s stupid face, but ultimately decided to play nice for Luka and the children’s sake. “Marinette—my wife—is working out of town for the weekend, so Hugo and I—Hugo is my son—are staying with Luka.”

XY’s fingers curled into trembling fists, and his lips drew back to expose snarling teeth. “I know who Hugo is, and he’s not _your_ son,” he snapped savagely, catching Adrien by surprise and momentarily knocking the pleasant smile off of his face.

Adrien quickly recovered, slapping his friendly expression back on. “I think I’ve changed enough diapers and cleaned up enough vomit and kissed enough boo-boos to consider myself a father, but thank you very much for your opinion,” he replied with false joviality through gritted teeth. “Would you like to come in?”

“This isn’t your house,” XY retorted indignantly.

Adrien almost said, “Is it not? Oh, gosh. How silly of me. I guess I can’t invite you in, then. Have fun waiting in the hall” before gleefully shutting the door with a vengeance.

But he controlled his temper and held his tongue, feeling very much like he had all those years dealing with his father’s moratorium on showing negative emotions.

“No, but Luka’s in the shower right now, so he won’t be coming to the door anytime soon,” he informed saccharinely, repeating, “Would you like to come in?”

XY pushed past Adrien, storming into the living room without a reply.

Adrien took a moment locking up behind him to regain his composure and wonder what on earth Luka saw in this brutish buffoon.

He turned around to find XY staring at Hugo, still asleep on the seat of the couch. There was a soft, gentle expression on XY’s face, a tender warmth and affection in his eyes as he looked at Adrien’s son… _Luka’s_ son.

Adrien took a deep inhale and slowly let it out.

Okay.

If Xavier-Yves looked at Luka with even half that much love, maybe there was something there after all.

“May I get you something to drink?” Adrien offered quietly so as not to disturb Hugo.

“I can get it myself,” XY shot back in a hiss of a whisper.

Adrien put his hands up in surrender, going back to sit next to Hugo. “Go right ahead.”

XY did so, just to spite Adrien. He came back from the kitchen a minute later with a glass of water and slumped into the armchair cattycorner from the couch.

_“Great. Now what?”_ Adrien wondered, mentally willing Luka to shower and dress quickly.

“Your _son_ doesn’t look much like you,” XY remarked icily.

Adrien forced himself to keep his amiable façade in place. “He has my smile, my charisma. Other than that, no, but I view that as a good thing. I’d much rather my child resemble the two people I love most.”

XY snorted rudely, setting down his glass of water on a coaster on the side table and crossing his arms with a grunt.

Adrien sighed, letting the act drop. “You know, I’m trying really hard to like you, but you’re not making this easy.”

XY gave an amused bark of laughter. “I don’t give a rat’s—” He looked to Hugo and then back to Adrien. “— _behind_ if you like me or not. You’re just some pretty rich boy. I don’t care what the—” He glanced at Hugo again. “— _hell_ you think.”

Adrien’s mouth pulled into a tight, serpentine smile. “Awesome. Well, since we have some time while Luka’s in the shower, why don’t we chat and get to know one another? Let’s start with how we met Luka,” Adrien suggested, tone chipper and buoyant. “I was classmates with his sisters Rose and Juleka, and I came over to the Liberty for the annual music festival. I tripped on some wires and totally faceplanted. Luka helped me up, and our hands touched, our eyes met, and it was just like something out of a fairytale. Luka told me a few years later that it was love at first sight for him,” Adrien added cheerfully.

XY’s face was red with fury, and Adrien couldn’t help but think that if this had been five years prior, he would have been dealing with an akuma by this point.

Still, he pressed, fed up with XY’s attitude. “How did _you_ and Luka meet?—Oh wait! I remember,” he laughed in a “silly me” sort of way. “You and your father ripped off his music, threatened my wife, and got Luka akumatized. Wow. What an interesting story to tell the kids, right?”

XY gave a soft growl. “You think you’re so great, Agreste, but you’re really not.”

Adrien was taken aback at the vehemence of the anger and bitterness in XY’s voice.

“You have no idea,” XY continued, “how often you and Marinette make Luka feel alone and unloved. You two don’t truly appreciate him, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of watching you break his heart. News flash, Agreste: he doesn’t need you anymore. He’s with me now, and I’m going to treat him how he deserves to be treated. He’s not even going to miss you.”

Adrien’s expression went glacial, and, suddenly, XY could tell without a doubt that Adrien was Gabriel Agreste’s son.

A cruel frost settled into Adrien’s eyes as he replied coolly, “Listen here, you homewrecking clown. _I_ am not going anywhere. Luka and I have been together for eight years. _Years_. You’ve been making out with him for, what? A couple months? And you think you have this great bond with him, that _you’re_ the one who understands him?”

XY had gone into the confrontation feeling confident, but now he felt very small and very squishable.

Adrien laughed, the noise raking XY’s self-esteem like a jaguar’s claws. “Luka and I have a child together,” Adrien rubbed it in. “Which of us do you think _really_ knows him? Because Luka and I spent our adolescence together. We supported each other and helped each other to grow into adults. I’ve been there for him during some of his darkest times just like he’s been there for me. You think you know Luka? You don’t know anything. You can’t take Luka away from me; I’m a part of who Luka _is_.”

Adrien waited a beat, letting that sink in. “…Now…if Luka really were seeking you out to fill some kind of void in his relationship with Marinette and me…wouldn’t that mean you were just a stand-in for someone else?”

XY paled, looking down at the arm of the chair, unable to respond.

“Hm,” Adrien patronized. “I wonder…. I’m willing to share, XY, if that truly makes Luka happy, but you are never going to steal Luka from me. It’s better if you get that through your head now. Marinette, Luka, Hugo, and I are a _family_ , and decent people don’t just go around breaking families up. If Luka wants you to join us, fine, but drop the attitude, you uncouth swine.”

XY didn’t respond. He couldn’t respond.

It was like Adrien had taken a scalpel and cut out his larynx, taking away his power to defend himself. It was just like when XY’s father yelled at him, harsh words cutting through him as if he were made of paper, leaving him helpless.

Adrien’s words flooded XY with doubt.

“Daddy, you paused Ladybug,” Hugo noted sleepily, waking to find the show was no longer playing.

“Because you fell asleep, My Sweet One,” Adrien cooed, voice warm and kind once more as he ruffled his son’s hair.

“Daddy, who’s dat?”

XY looked up to see familiar blue eyes gazing at him with curiosity. Hugo wasn’t an exact copy of Luka by any stretch, but the shade of the eyes, some of the gently angular facial features, and the feathery hair were there.

Adrien got up and shepherded Hugo over to XY, saying, “Come meet Papa’s friend.”

XY stood, whispering, “I’m not your friend.”

Adrien rolled his eyes and hissed back, “ _I’m_ not ‘Papa’. What do you want him to call you?”

“Uh…XY is fine,” XY replied, a little thrown.

Adrien crouched down to Hugo’s level. “Gogo, this is Papa’s best friend, XY. What do you say?”

Hugo stared the long way up at XY and looked slightly intimidated.

XY copied Adrien, crouching down to be at eye-level with the two-year-old.

Hugo took a deep breath and recited, “Hello. My name is Hugo Agreste-Dupain-Cheng. Enchanted to meet you, Monsieur XY.”

“Awesome job, Gogo,” Adrien whispered, giving his son an encouraging pat on the back. “That was perfect.”

XY took Hugo’s outstretched hand and shook it carefully. “Hello, Hugo. It’s nice to meet you. You can just call me XY. My real name is Xavier-Yves. I’m…uh…I’m a friend of your papa.”

Hugo’s face lit up. “Xavier-Yves? Papa talked about you,” he announced proudly, happy to feel like he was in the loop.

XY’s mouth dropped open. “O-Oh? He did? Really?”

Hugo nodded. “You like cars! Wanna pway cars with me?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” XY agreed with a shrug, not yet certain what to make of the fact that Luka had told his son about XY. Surely that was a good thing, right?

Hugo ran over to the corner where a child-sized backpack sat on top of the large plastic tub that usually occupied that spot. Hugo wrapped both arms around the backpack and toddled back over to XY.

XY wondered if he should offer to help the little guy, but Adrien didn’t seem concerned as he got up and took a seat back on the couch, watching the scene play out.

Hugo set the backpack down and carefully emptied the contents onto the floor.

Out spilled nearly thirty little toy cars in all different makes and models.

XY’s eyes went wide.

Hugo grinned. “Papa and Daddy don’t know about cars, but Papa said you did. He said you could pwobably tell me about my cars. Like this one.” Hugo held up a red racecar, a [Ford GT40](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_GT40) with the number fifty-five stamped on its sides and hood. “This one’s my favourite because it’s got my name on it.” He pointed to the fifty-five. “In Japanese, ‘five’ is ‘go’, so you can write my name as ‘five-five’. Gogo.”

XY nodded slowly. “You’re gonna be scary smart like your papa, aren’t you?” he chuckled.

“Mmhm!” Hugo beamed, glowing with pride. “I’m pwecocious.”

XY shifted from his crouch to take a seat on the floor by the pile of cars. “And you want me to tell you about the cars while we play?”

Hugo nodded enthusiastically, eyes going wide and hopeful. “Pwease!”

“Okay,” XY acquiesced. “Sounds like fun.”

Adrien watched as his son and his partner’s boyfriend wheeled the cars around the floor, making appropriate sound effects. Periodically, XY would mention some fact about one of the cars they were playing with, its name, its year, something about the way it was built or the parts, what made it special.

Every other minute, Hugo would stop playing to ask XY a question, holding up a car and asking his new friend to, “Tell me about dis one!”

Adrien was legitimately impressed. It was obvious that XY knew a _lot_ about cars on a very technical level, but the vocabulary he used was very age-appropriate, his explanations simple, and Adrien could tell that Hugo was actually absorbing much of what XY said.

Maybe the “other man” wasn’t all bad after all.

Adrien could forgive many personal slights if a guy was patient and kind to Hugo. Adrien could tell it wasn’t just for show either. XY genuinely seemed to be having fun pushing cars around and making them do somersaults in the air while sharing facts about the cars and producing silly car noises.

They just needed to do something about XY’s jealousy and poor attitude. Adrien didn’t have the mental energy to deal with a repeat of their conversation prior to Hugo waking up and redeeming XY.

…Maybe Adrien needed to do something about his own jealousy and poor attitude as well…but XY had definitely started it.

…They obviously had some work to do if this was going to be a long-term thing.

“Hey, Adrien,” Luka called as he walked into the living room with a towel slung around his hips. “Have you seen my—Xavier-Yves! Uhhh…”

Luka stared in horror at his lover, son, and the guy he was making out with all in the same room.

XY raised a hand unenthusiastically in greeting. “Surprised? I was too.”

Luka sucked in a breath and let out a whispered curse in what XY assumed was Russian.

“I’m not supposed to repeat dat,” Hugo reported conspiratorially to XY.

Despite himself, XY laughed, though, it came out sounding a little miserable.

“Orpheus, you should probably go put some clothes on,” Adrien advised, and XY bristled at the nickname.

He’d forgotten for almost fifteen minutes that Adrien was even there, but, then, of course, Adrien had to find some way to rub in how close he was with Luka, how much history there was between the two of them.

“Right,” Luka sighed, spinning on his heel. “Sorry. Back in five.”

Luka had never dressed so fast in his life. He came back two minutes later and was greeted by Adrien saying something in Russian that XY couldn’t understand.

Where did pretty boy learn Russian? Did all smart people know Russian? XY obviously needed to learn if Luka and Adrien were going to be having secret conversations that should be held behind XY’s back in front of his face like this.

Luka replied to whatever Adrien had said tiredly, sounding like he was lightly scolding.

XY felt like a pane of glass had been lowered between them, firmly placing Luka and Adrien on one side and XY on the other.

He looked at Hugo and whispered, “You don’t know what they’re saying, do you?”

Hugo shook his head. “Daddy said something mean, and Papa told him to be nice.”

XY quirked an eyebrow at the incredibly sharp young boy. “How do you know that?”

In the background, Adrien was shooting off a long, indignant string of Russian at Luka, pointing accusatorily at XY, and then crossing his arms.

Luka paled, muttering a disjointed apology.

Hugo shrugged. “Papa and Daddy talk Russian when they don’t want people to understand. I hear them talk Russian, and I ask what they said. Uncle Victor teaches me too.”

XY nodded slowly. “Cool. So…what did your daddy say? More mean things?”

Hugo shook his head. “He said you were mean to him. Why were you mean to Daddy?”

XY winced, searching for some kind of answer that a two-year-old could understand. “We both want the same thing, but only one of us can have it.”

Hugo frowned at this. “You can’t share?”

“Gogo,” Adrien called gently, distracting the boy. “Let’s get your toys cleaned up. You and I are going for a walk.”

Hugo stuck out his bottom lip. “But Xavier-Yves and I are pwaying.”

“You can play some more when we get back from our walk. We’ll only be gone thirty minutes,” Adrien cajoled, kneeling down on the floor and starting to return the cars to the backpack.

Hugo pursed his lips and looked like he might protest or cry but then seemed to decide against it. Reluctantly, he started to help his father put away the cars. “Are we going to the Bois de Bouwogne?”

“That’s right,” Adrien confirmed.

“Can Papa and Xavier-Yves and Pwagg come with us?” Hugo inquired, looking up at Adrien hopefully.

“Plagg can come, but Papa and XY are staying here. They have to take care of some adult business,” Adrien explained.

Hugo did not look satisfied with this answer. “Do you have any cheese for Pwagg? Pwagg will get hungry if we’re gone a long time.”

“I’ll go get some out of the fridge,” Adrien assured, zipping up the bookbag and taking it back over to the corner. “You go get your shoes on, okay?”

Hugo nodded, pushing himself to his feet and toddler-running over to the door to get his shoes.

XY stood as well, looking to Luka and whispering, “Who’s Plagg?”

Luka smiled sheepishly. “Uh…Plagg is a flying, talking, magical entity who looks like a black cat. He was Adrien’s friend growing up, and now Plagg and Hugo are friends. Plagg likes cheese. A lot.”

XY nodded, taking this in stride. “I had imaginary friends growing up too, but all of mine were people.”

Luka nodded agreeably, thanking his lucky stars that he didn’t actually have to explain Plagg.

“Okay. I got some Cheddar for Plagg to snack on,” Adrien reported as he came back into the living room. “Ready to go, Gogo?”

Hugo frowned. “Cheddar isn’t his favourite. He thinks it’s boring.”

Adrien grimaced. “I know, Sweetie, but sometimes he just has to make do. He can’t have Camembert all the time.” He held out his hands to Hugo, and Hugo obediently came over to be picked up.

Adrien turned back to Luka, eyes bypassing XY. “We’ll be back in thirty.”

Luka nodded and gave a little wave.

The door closed behind Adrien and Hugo, leaving the flat in a state of intense silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little confused as to what the origin of egg in the basket is. Is this a UK thing? Do people eat it in the US? Wikipedia says that it has a bunch of other names like "gashouse eggs". :/ Is this a common food that other people have heard of? It's one of my favourite ways to eat eggs. ^.^;
> 
> I feel like I need to clarify that saying "go go" is saying "five five". If you want to say fifty-five, it's "go-jyuu go" in Japanese.
> 
> The “Uncle Victor” whom Hugo mentions is Adrien’s bodyguard the Gorilla. I headcanon him as Russian. He doesn’t talk because, even though he understands French, he’s not confident in his French speaking abilities. He taught Adrien Russian and is teaching Hugo some too.
> 
> By the way, I am not under the delusion that Hugo is in any way a typical two-year-old. He's very precocious and incredibly intelligent when compared with his peers. He's going to be one of those kids who skips grades when he's older. One of the reasons for his advanced mental development is that he's always around adults who generally take the time to stop and explain things to him. His parents and the extended network of his caretakers fuss over him, but they don't baby him. They talk to him like a little adult and take the time to read to him and play with him and teach him things. He has a lot more one-on-one interaction with a wide variety of individuals than other people his age, giving him an advantage on top of the high intelligence that he was born with.
> 
> So, the update plan for the coming week is Chapter Six on Monday, 06/29/2020, Chapter Seven on Wednesday, 07/01/2020, and Chapter Eight on Saturday, 07/04/2020. How does that sound? Thanks for reading guys!
> 
> References:  
> Egg in the Basket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_in_the_basket  
> Edam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edam_cheese  
> Ford GT40: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_GT40


	6. Style Swap Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I hope your day is going well. I'm having a pretty productive one. ^.^ Thank you so much to everyone reading this story, and special thanks to everyone who's bookmarked it, left kudos, or taken the time to comment. Your support is much appreciated.
> 
> I hope you enjoy today's chapter.

“…So…” Luka ventured. “…You met Adrien and Hugo.”

XY looked back at Luka searchingly, scanning his boyfriend’s face. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he didn’t feel like he’d found it.

With a sigh, XY sat down on the couch.

Luka came around and sat beside him a little less than a meter off.

“Hugo’s a really good kid,” XY remarked, throwing Luka a softball. “Really smart. Really well-behaved.”

Luka swallowed. “Thank you. That’s mostly due to Marinette and Adrien, though. He’s with them most often. I don’t know if I make much difference.”

“Nah. You make plenty of difference. I can tell he’s your kid,” XY assured, looking down at the area rug.

“Thanks,” Luka repeated.

Silence fell.

“So, where did Adrien learn Russian?” XY inquired, only half curious.

“His bodyguard Victor is Russian. He was always really self-conscious about his French, so he didn’t speak much, but he taught Adrien Russian. Adrien’s good with languages. He speaks a couple…English, Chinese…some Spanish and Italian…. He taught himself Japanese.”

XY nodded as a bitter feeling churned in his gut. “He must be really smart. I had a hard enough time learning French.”

Luka pursed his lips. “Well, not everyone is a language person. And even though Adrien is very smart about academic matters, his social intelligence has always been a little lacking. He’s not perfect.”

XY snorted. “He seemed pretty perfect, honestly.”

“Xavier-Yves,” Luka called softly, tentatively reaching out to rest a hand on XY’s arm.

XY pulled away, turning to glare at Luka. “Did you sleep with him last night?”

Luka’s eyes went wide. “I…”

A guttural growl rumbled in the back of XY’s throat. “I know you did. Unless he slept on the couch, there’s nowhere else in this apartment for him to sleep but your bed. I’ve seen the guestroom, Luka. I know there’s only instruments and Hugo’s bed in there. I saw the way you came out of the shower barely covered by that towel because you thought it was just him here. I saw him wearing your hoodie. I may not be smart like you and Adrien, but I’m not an idiot, Luka. I’m not blind. I can tell you’re still seeing him.”

Luka sucked in a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “Okay. Yes. I’m still seeing Adrien and Marinette. I can see why that might make you jealous, but—”

“—But nothing!” XY snapped, rising to his feet to glare down at Luka with balled fists. “I come over here to surprise you and take you out to breakfast only to find that my boyfriend is running around behind my back with his ex!”

Luka’s face lost all color. He dropped his head into his hands and cursed.

“Yeah,” XY laughed. “That’s what I thought too. Now, what I want to know is is this an ongoing thing or a one-time mess up. Have you been cheating on me this whole time?”

Luka groaned and looked up at XY with remorse-filled eyes. “Hey, Xavier-Yves?” he called tenderly, gently as if XY were breakable.

XY quirked an eyebrow.

“Could you please sit down? We need to talk.”

XY frowned but did as asked.

Luka took a deep breath and slipped his hand into XY’s, giving it a squeeze. “Look. I’m so sorry that I keep screwing things up with you. I…” He winced. “I told you I was a mess when we started this thing, and I’m afraid that I’m still a mess.”

XY nodded, squeezing Luka’s hand in return.

Luka gulped. “So…I owe you a lot of apologies, but I think the biggest one is…” He bit his lip, bracing for the fall out. “I’m really sorry, Xavier-Yves. I didn’t realize that you thought we were dating.”

XY blinked. “What?”

“I…didn’t know we were dating,” Luka repeated, though the words pained him.

XY yanked his hand back. “Dude. What the _hell_?”

“I’m so sorry,” Luka stressed, wishing he had something more meaningful to articulate.

XY was back on his feet, face nearly purple with rage as he hissed, “We’ve been making out for _months_. I’ve slept in your bed. I thought what with your not sleeping with people you don’t love that you’d be a little less loose with your affections, but are you even serious right now?!”

Luka flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, _you’re_ sorry? No. _I’m_ sorry,” XY snapped. “I’m sorry I ever thought I meant something to you. Can you be honest for one second? How many other people are you making out and bed-sharing with? Mostly, I’m horrified and pissed, but part of me wants to know how many people I was sharing you with. Do you just hook up with people and string them along like this? Is this what you do for fun? How meaningless was our time together?”

“Xavier-Yves, it’s not like that,” Luka exclaimed, rising to his feet, desperate to set the record straight. “There _is_ no one else. It’s just you.”

“ _And_ Adrien and Marinette,” XY scoffed.

Guilt flooded Luka’s expression, but he nodded. “You and Adrien and Marinette, but I promise that that’s it. I _don’t_ just go out and hook up with random people. That’s not me.”

“Then why’d you do it with me?” XY demanded, hurt and betrayal and a hint of tears in his voice. “Why’d you start something with me? You said you didn’t want to be friends with benefits and lead me on, so when we started making out and having sleepovers, I thought that meant you were serious. I mean, I knew you didn’t love me because you wouldn’t have sex, but…I thought I was at least your boyfriend. I thought we had _something_ , you know?” His sky-blue eyes bore into Luka. “If I’m not your boyfriend, what am I to you?”

Luka sighed, sinking back down on the couch. “Important.”

XY crossed his arms, closing himself off, trying to shut down the pain.

“…Important,” he echoed thoughtfully. “What does that even mean?”

Luka patted the seat of the couch beside him.

XY considered Luka for a moment before relenting and going to sit just out of Luka’s reach. “This better be damn good.”

Luka shook his head sadly. “It’s not. It’s just the truth. I’m sorry. I was selfish. I could tell at the beginning that you wanted a serious relationship, and I knew I was in no shape to be in one, so I told myself I needed to be careful not to hurt you and ruin the concept of relationships for you, but…”

Luka sighed, forcing himself to meet XY’s gaze penitently. “I really screwed up. I liked hanging out with you. I liked kissing you, so I just let things snowball without hitting the pause button to make sure we were on the same page. I’m sorry that I’ve been treating this like a casual thing. You’re right. You’re my boyfriend. I should have been treating you like it. I’m sorry I dragged you into this without thinking it through. You deserve better.”

XY slowly began to nod. “So…I’m not just some joke to you? You’re not just messing with me?”

“No,” Luka assured, scooting in closer to place his hand on top of XY’s.

XY let him without pulling away this time.

“I like you, Xavier-Yves. I genuinely like you. I didn’t think I’d like you this much, but I do. I like you as a person, as a friend… _and_ romantically. You’re not a joke or a fling. I know I haven’t been taking this as seriously as I should, but I promise you that my feelings for you are real. You’re very important to me. I’m sorry that I haven’t proven that to you with my actions.”

XY took a deep breath and swallowed. “So…I’m not just a replacement for Adrien because things with him aren’t going how you want?”

Luka’s eyes widened in shocked horror. “What? No. Absolutely not. What I have with you and what I have with Adrien…those are two separate things. You’re each unique and irreplaceable to me. Yes, when we started things, I was feeling down because of Marinette and Adrien, and you _did_ make me feel better, but our relationship was about you and me. It was never about them.”

XY bit his lip. “So…where does that leave _us_?” He inclined an eyebrow at Luka. “You have feelings for me?”

Luka nodded. “I do. I care about you a lot, Xavier-Yves. I really like you.”

“So, you’d be interested in dating? Officially?” he clarified.

“Yes.” Luka laced his fingers through XY’s, giving his hand a squeeze.

XY pursed his lips. “…Does that mean you’re breaking up with Marinette and Adrien?” he inquired hopefully, but the sad note to his voice suggested that he knew what Luka’s answer was going to be.

Luka took a slow inhale, gently taking his hand back from XY as he blew out the breath. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

“Because they’re your family?” XY sighed, recalling Adrien’s words.

Luka nodded, face red, a conflicted expression etched into the creases of his brow. “I’m sorry. I’ve loved them since I met them. We have a child together. They’re in the top five of the most important people in my life, and I…I can’t get over them. I’ve been trying for years, but…”

“They’re a part of who you are?” XY echoed Adrien, feeling miserable.

Luka’s eyes widened, and he looked at XY in astonishment. “You get it.”

XY didn’t really, but he nodded anyway. “You’re saying that you and your family are a package deal?”

Luka’s gaze dropped back down to his hands in his lap. “Yeah. That’s a good way of putting it. I know it’s kind of messed up, but…they’re never going to be my past. They’re never going to be exes. I know it’s ridiculous to ask you to just accept that. I know it’s wrong and unfair and that you deserve better. I _know_ from first-hand experience how much it hurts to love someone who doesn’t love you above everyone else. I know what it’s like to have to share someone’s affections. It sucks. It eats you up inside and makes you wonder what’s wrong with you, why you aren’t good enough, why you aren’t enough for them. I know what that feels like, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

Luka looked back up, raising a hand to stroke XY’s cheek. “I care about you so much, Xavier-Yves…and I don’t want that for you. …You probably need to find someone else, someone who isn’t so messed up, someone who can love _just_ you. You deserve someone who can love you fully and make you happy. It’s enough that I make myself miserable sometimes. I don’t want to make you unhappy too. I don’t want to drag you down with me.”

In a small, tender voice, he added, “I’m sorry I let things get this far. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

With a bittersweet smile, Luka let his hand drop from XY’s cheek.

XY’s heart ached the way microphone feedback hurt his ears. It felt like everything was falling apart just when something in his life had finally begun to feel right.

He had to swallow twice to get some moisture in his mouth before he could answer, “You’re breaking up with me?”

His palms suddenly felt itchy. His throat burned, and he could feel tears building behind his eyes, just waiting to come flooding out.

Luka winced. “No. I mean…I’m _not_ rejecting you, Xavier-Yves. I would like to be in a relationship with you, but…honestly, you can do better. I’m not the kind of guy you belong with. It’d be best for you to find someone else, someone who can make you happy.”

XY wanted to whine that _Luka_ made him happy.

“And what are you going to do?” he asked instead.

Luka shrugged, averting his gaze. “What I’ve been doing, I guess.”

“And what’s that?” XY scoffed. “Hook up with Adrien and Marinette when you’re convenient for them and mope and feel lonely when you’re not? What kind of life is that, Luka?”

“It’s fine,” Luka grumbled. “It’s not like that. I’ve got my work too, and I’m happy most of the time.”

“But when you’re not happy, you’re clinically depressed,” XY snorted. “You deserve better. _You_ deserve someone who makes you a priority.”

Luka shook his head. “It’s kind of hard with two lovers and a child in tow. I’ve gotten to this point twice before, Xavier-Yves. Things fall apart when people try to make me choose between them and Marinette and Adrien. That was before we had a son even. It’s unreasonable and unfair to expect someone to accept me as I am, baggage and all.”

XY bit his lip. “You know…decent people don’t break up families.” He found himself paraphrasing Adrien yet again.

“Decent people don’t conveniently not mention the fact that they already have a family to prospective partners,” Luka chuckled miserably.

“Hey,” XY said firmly, catching Luka’s arm with the intent of not letting go. “I don’t like this thing with you and Adrien and Marinette. I _don’t_. I don’t want to share you. I want to steal you away from them and make you forget all the ways they ever made you feel like you weren’t enough. I don’t want you to be involved with them anymore.”

Luka opened his mouth to speak, but XY talked over him, raising his voice. “ _BUT_ , I get it. I get that you’re stuck. It sucks. It sucks not being able to move on, having this person in your head and not being able to forget even though you know it’s hopeless and you’re never going to get what you want from them. I get that…so how can I get ticked at you for something you can’t help?”

“I don’t understand,” Luka confessed, trying to process XY’s words. “Are you saying you aren’t mad at me?”

XY shook his head. “I’m mad. Not really at you. More like…at the world for putting us in this situation. I’m trying to say that I understand…and I want you anyway.”

Luka’s eyes turned into egg-sized seas of white with a splash of ocean blue in the centers. “You…do?”

XY nodded, moving his hold on Luka’s arm down to Luka’s hand to give a bolstering squeeze. “I’ve never been so sure about anything. I don’t like the whole situation with Marinette and Adrien, but…I can learn to live with it, I think. I mean, if you’re honest with me. I want to know when you’re going to see them. No sneaking around behind my back and forgetting to mention it anymore.”

“Right,” Luka sighed, looking down, suitably chastened. “Sorry.”

“And I want to borrow one of your hoodies before Adrien gets back,” XY continued down his list of demands.

“O…kay,” Luka agreed disjointedly, not quite sure what the purpose of the clothing swap was.

“And you need to put on my jacket.” XY quickly whipped it off and shoved it at Luka. “You have to wear it the rest of the day, even after I leave and it’s just you and pretty boy and Hugo. Swear.”

“Ooooh,” Luka chuckled, realizing what was going on as he slipped on the jacket. “You’re marking me?”

“So that Adrien gets that he’s not the only one with a claim on you,” XY growled bitterly.

“All right,” Luka agreed. “I’ll wear the jacket the rest of the day if that’s what you want.”

XY nodded “And I want to make an announcement. You know. Officially start dating. Publicly.”

Luka’s eyes flew open in surprise. “Wait. You mean like you officially coming out to the media and your fans and-and your _father_?”

The immensity of this act was not lost upon Luka.

XY shrugged. “Dad already knows I like guys. He’s just had me keep it secret because he thinks it’ll hurt my ratings, but I don’t care. I want everyone to know you’re taken.”

Luka sucked in a breath. “I mean…everyone already knows I’m bi, so it doesn’t make a big difference for me, but, Xavier-Yves, coming out is kind of a big deal. People aren’t nice. You could lose a lot of fans. People could send you hate mail or write nasty messages on social media. I think you need to give this some more thought. This isn’t the kind of decision to make lightly.”

“You don’t want people to know we’re dating?” XY inferred, trying to keep the pain out of his voice.

Luka shook his head and gripped XY’s forearm. “I don’t want you to get hurt. Trust me. Random people whom you’ve never met before are going to make it their life’s mission to make your life hell. I’m not saying that we can’t publicly date if that’s what you decide you really want; I’m just trying to make sure that you go into this with your eyes open. Sometimes it really sucks to be different.”

XY bit his lip, letting Luka’s words sink in. “Maybe…Maybe we could secretly date for a little while before we come out.”

Luka nodded. “We can still go out in public together, see movies, get dinner. We just won’t put a public label on it until we’re ready.”

“Okay,” XY agreed, feeling better about that plan.

Luka hesitated before asking, “Not that I’m complaining, but…Xavier-Yves, are you really sure you want to date me? I’m afraid I’m just going to end up hurting you.”

“Luka, I _want_ this,” XY insisted with determination burning in his eyes. “Maybe I will get hurt in the end, but…the plan was always to get you to fall in love with me. Maybe I’ll be able to win you from Adrien and Marinette after all. Maybe I’ll get over my jealousy and resentment towards them eventually. I don’t know. I just want to give this a chance, okay? I want you, and I want to make this work.”

Luka studied the resolute expression on XY’s face, seeing how serious he was.

He took a deep breath and nodded as he blew it out. “Okay. All right. Let’s make this work.”

He was taken by surprise as XY surged forward, knocking Luka down on the couch with a fierce kiss.

“I don’t want to lose you,” XY whispered against Luka’s lips when they took a break to catch their breath.

“Me either,” Luka concurred, surprised by how much he meant it. “Sorry if I screw this up.”

“I won’t let you,” XY snorted, going back to nibbling at Luka’s lips.

They wrapped up the make-out session ten minutes later so that XY could pick out one of Luka’s hoodies to borrow before Adrien and Hugo got back.

XY wasn’t opposed to Adrien walking in to find them lip-locked, but Luka had pointed out that Hugo didn’t need to see his father sucking on someone’s tonsils.

XY relented but insisted that Luka couldn’t straighten his hair or clothes completely so that he would still look tussled enough for Adrien to guess what they’d been doing.

“You are really jealous of Adrien, aren’t you?” Luka sighed, running a hand through his hair.

XY shrugged, snuggling up inside of Luka’s hoodie. “My boyfriend is in love with a literal model who’s smart enough to teach himself languages, has known my boyfriend longer and better than me, _and_ who’s my boyfriend’s baby-daddy. Gee, Luka. I wonder why anyone would be insecure in that situation.”

Luka winced, scooping up XY’s hand and giving it a kiss. “Sorry.”

XY shrugged again, a tiny smile starting to pull at his lips. “It’s okay.”

There was a knock at the door, and Luka got up with a frown.

Adrien, with Hugo balanced on his hip, stood smiling tentatively out in the hallway.

“Do you not have your key?” Luka stepped out of the way to let Adrien back in.

XY held in a jealous hiss because _of course_ Adrien had a key to Luka’s flat.

“Didn’t want to walk in on anything,” Adrien explained, quickly surveying the wardrobe swap and rumpled appearances of Luka and XY. “Make up sex or break up sex?”

XY was surprised to find that Adrien’s blasé attitude did not offer the satisfaction he’d been looking forward to.

“Neither,” Luka sighed, taking Hugo from Adrien’s arms and nuzzling his son’s hair. “Just kissing. Xavier-Yves and I are officially dating now.”

Adrien nodded, taking the announcement in stride. “Congratulations, Orpheus.”

The hair on the back of XY’s neck stood up at the earnest tone to his rival’s voice.

And then Adrien turned and gave XY a nod of acknowledgement. “You’ll have to meet Marinette. If you guys are official, we should spend some time together, the five us. Maybe Marinette and I could have you and Luka over for dinner on a night when my understudy is performing and Marinette isn’t staring down the barrel of a deadline and you guys don’t have concerts.”

“Uh…yeah. That would be great. Thanks,” XY cautiously agreed, trying to hide his surprise at being so readily included and introduced to the family. Part of him felt like this had to be a trap. Why was Adrien accepting him so easily?

“I’ll coordinate schedules,” Luka volunteered.

“Papa?” Hugo spoke up, breaking into the moment. “I need to go potty. Come with me, pwease?”

“Uh…” Luka blinked, looking back and forth between Adrien and XY as if trying to determine if it were safe to leave them alone together.

“I’ll go with you, Baby,” Adrien offered accommodatingly.

“No,” Hugo whimpered. “Papa.”

“It’s okay, Gogo,” Luka jumped in before the whimper could become an outburst of tears. “I’ll go with you.”

With one last worried glance at both Adrien and XY, Luka carried Hugo out of the living room, down the back hallway, and to the bathroom, all the while praying that his boyfriend and his lover didn’t get blood on the carpet.

“So,” Adrien sighed when Luka had gone, turning to face XY and sizing him up.

XY stood, crossing his arms and tipping his head to the side, trying to make himself look intimidating. “So?” he replied in a “wanna make something of it?” tone.

Adrien sighed again, carding a hand through his hair all the way to the back of his neck where it stayed. “I owe you an apology.”

XY arched an eyebrow, his trap senses tingling.

“I said some nasty things to you earlier, and it’s been bothering me,” Adrien confessed. “You’re not just a replacement to Luka to make up for the ways his relationship with me isn’t everything he wishes it were. That was horrible for me to say, even if you were a jerk first and I was angry. Luka cares about you a lot. You as a person. You make him happy, and I _want_ Luka to be happy, so…I’m sorry. Can we please just find some way to make this work? You don’t have to like me, and I don’t have to like you, but can we work together to be civil so we don’t drive the guy we both adore nuts?”

XY let his arms drop to his sides where his hands slipped into the pocket of Luka’s hoodie. “…Yeah. Okay. That’s something I could get behind. I…I guess I owe you an apology too.”

Adrien’s eyes went wide. The last time he checked, Xavier-Yves Roth did not acknowledge personal wrongdoing and certainly didn’t offer apologies.

Maybe Luka was right and XY really had changed over the years.

XY’s shoulders scrunched up to his ears, and he looked away as he muttered. “I wasn’t very dope to you earlier. I thought I’d walked in on my boyfriend cheating on me with his ex, so…sorry for all the mean things I said. I’ll try not to be such a jerk now that I get the whole situation.”

Adrien nodded, happy with that concession. “I think that’s a good start. Maybe, someday, we’ll even be able to stand one another.”

XY gave a bark of a laugh and offered Adrien a tolerant smile. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Pretty Boy.”

Adrien grinned, preening. “Oh, you think I’m pretty? Thank you. You’re not too bad on the eyes now that you don’t look like you’ve got a broom growing out of your head.”

XY groaned, annoyed that he’d left an opening that wide with a sign practically inviting Adrien to trash talk him. He clicked his tongue. “Yeah, I think the day of us standing one another is long off.”

Adrien shrugged. “It doesn’t ever have to come so long as we behave for Luka’s sake.”

“I can do that,” XY agreed.

XY stayed for another hour and a half, playing instruments in the guestroom with Hugo until the two-year-old started getting cranky and had to be put down for a nap.

After he was gone, Adrien and Luka slumped down onto the couch, shoulder to shoulder.

“I tried really hard to like him, but I don’t,” Adrien sighed.

“He’s definitely an acquired taste,” Luka readily admitted. “It’s okay if you never actually like each other. Just, please, don’t bite each other’s heads off.”

Adrien made a face of disgust. “Ick. I’m mostly vegetarian, Love.”

“I know,” Luka chuckled, leaning in to swipe a kiss against Adrien’s temple.

“I’m going to keep trying,” Adrien decided with a tired sigh. “There _must_ be something likable about him if you’re actually serious about dating him and being his friend.”

“I am. And there is,” Luka assured.

Adrien nodded. “Okay. Then, it’s settled. I’ll keep trying. If he’s going to be joining our family, we’ll need to get along. I _want_ to get along for your sake as well as for the children. I mean, Hugo likes him, and I was actually impressed with how well he interacted with Hugo today, so…” Adrien trailed off frowning back at Luka as he realized that Luka was furrowing his brow at him. “What? What is it? Why are you frowning like that?”

“You said ‘children’. Plural,” Luka observed.

Adrien’s eyes went wide and then he grimaced. “Shoot. Marinette just told me, like, right before she left for Milan, as she was getting in the car to go to the airport, and she wanted to tell you together once she got back. I’m sorry for keeping it from you and now ruining the surprise, but…” A bright smile lit up Adrien’s entire face from the inside out as joy and excitement flooded his features. “We’re pregnant. Marinette’s already three months along. She kept it a secret because I reacted so badly to the miscarriage, so she wanted to wait until we were out of the woods, but…we’re going to have a baby.”

“Congratulations, Fifth,” Luka chuckled, pulling Adrien into a solid hug. “I’m so, so happy for you.”

Adrien pushed back and gave Luka a funny look. “Why are you congratulating _me_? It’s _your_ baby too. Heck, you’re probably the biological father again. Probability is in your favour, honestly. I’m not sure if Marinette wants us telling people yet, but I’m thinking that your boyfriend counts as far as people who can know that you’re expecting a baby in six months. He might appreciate the heads up so that he can start brushing up on how to prepare a bottle and how to change a diaper. If he’s joining this family, he’s not getting off the hook for the not-fun bits.”

Luka burst out laughing and pulled Adrien in for another crushing hug. “Thank you. Thanks for embracing this so readily. I know this isn’t what you want, so I’m really grateful for you putting in so much effort just to make me happy.”

“I love you,” Adrien whispered gently. “If that means I have to let XY help raise my children…” Adrien shuddered. “God, I love you a whole lot, don’t I?”

Luka just laughed.

“I just have to keep reminding myself that he was _really_ good with Hugo today,” Adrien sighed, snuggling into Luka.

He got a noseful of XY’s scent off of the jacket Luka was still wearing. “Ugh. He smells like toxic masculinity…and teakwood? And musk. Ugh. Sorry, but can you take that thing off?”

Luka shook his head, trying to keep down an amused smile. “My boyfriend made me promise to wear it for the rest of the day to make you jealous.”

Adrien’s eyes narrowed. “More like make me gag. I’m trying really hard to like your boyfriend, Luka, but he kind of sucks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel really bad for the situation I've stuck XY and Luka into. :/ I mean, it's going to work out okay in the end, but...
> 
> I'm also really enjoying the rivalry between XY and Adrien. They have a fun dynamic that I haven't gotten to write much in the Ladybug fandom but used to write all the time in Detective Conan/Magic Kaito because I wrote a lot of rivals to lovers.
> 
> Ahem. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'll see you again on Wednesday, 07/01/2020. Thanks for reading!


	7. AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. I hope your week is going well so far. Thank you for joining me for today's chapter. I think you'll figure this out, but this chapter is a flashback that takes place directly after the Silence/Silencer episode. 
> 
> "AU" is supposed to be the Day Seven prompt, but I decided to switch things around again because it worked better with the plot.
> 
> I hope you enjoy today's installment. ^.^

XY was having a suck-tastic day.

Most of the fans seemed to be satisfied with Kitty Section appearing at the end of the show to perform their version of the song, but some people were making a big fuss because that guy had gotten akumatized.

No one seemed to care about XY and how he still didn’t have a new song to perform or how the akuma had attacked him, stolen his voice, and tied him up.

His dad was too busy performing damage control to tell XY what the plan was now, so XY was feeling a little anxious and unmoored, uncertain of what he should be doing besides waiting in the dressing room.

The worst part was that his father had called him an idiot on camera.

_My imbecile son._

The words kept echoing in XY’s mind.

All of Paris had heard.

XY knew he was dumb, but he didn’t like other people thinking it or saying it out loud. He knew he was a little slow. He just couldn’t stand when it was pointed out.

It reminded him of when he’d started school in France and how all the other kids, _younger_ kids who had actually grown up speaking French, rubbed in how stupid he was. He didn’t always understand the colloquial speech, but he knew the other kids were badmouthing him. When he looked up the words at home, he was ashamed that he’d been too dumb to understand that they were talking about how dumb he was.

His father’s words, “imbecile son”, cut deep, dragging up old hurts along with it.

He wished he could come up with something good, a new song, something original and unique like the fun, catchy unicorn song that Kitty Section had made. Maybe then his father would say something nice, not think XY was quite so stupid.

XY sighed heavily and pushed himself off the countertop so that his roller chair spun again. He closed his eyes, spinning, letting himself get dizzy.

Twelve minutes later when that ceased to be amusing, he let the chair slow to a stop and sat there for a second before he tried to get up.

He was tired and wanted to go home, but no one had come to get him yet. He was kind of hungry too. Akuma attacks always made him hungry, but there weren’t any snacks in the dressing room. He decided to go out in the hall and look for a vending machine, maybe get a soda or something.

He opened the door just in time to see the Kitty Section members pass—three girls and that giant guy—their backs to him.

XY wondered where that other guy was.

Luka. That was what his friend (girlfriend?) had called him.

Luka with the blazing blue eyes that lit a flame low in XY’s gut.

When Luka and his friend had first confronted XY and his father and Luka had reached out for the mask on the side of XY’s head, XY’s heart had done a double backflip. He’d thought for a second that Luka was reaching out to cup XY’s cheek.

In the moment before Luka had ripped the mask off, making the elastic snap painfully against XY’s skin, XY had stared into Luka’s smoldering, storm-like eyes, and it had been three kinds of magic.

XY had had crushes on guys before, but never that intense that quickly.

After the akuma had been taken care of, XY found the cheap, discarded mask where Ladybug’s magical ladybug swarm had put it back together after Chat Noir destroyed it. XY secreted the mask away, hiding it with his things to take home and save.

Luka was kind of terrifying but also incredibly attractive.

XY had watched him interacting with that girl he’d come with and the rest of his band, and Luka had a nice smile, a melodic laugh, a soft-spoken, sweet voice. It was clear that Luka could be a kind, fun person when he wasn’t angry.

XY kind of wished they’d met under better circumstances so that XY could have a chance at getting Luka to smile and laugh like that with _him_.

With a sigh, he shut the dressing room door and turned to head the opposite direction from Kitty Section.

He nearly ran right into Luka trailing behind his bandmates.

“Hey. Watch where you’re going,” Luka hissed, glaring XY down.

XY jumped, putting his hands up in self-defence as he flashed back to Silence finding him cowering in the storage closet, calling out to him with his own disembodied voice, tying him up, and then throwing XY over his shoulder to cart him off to the recording studio where Alec was already similarly bound.

Luka’s glare quickly dissipated into an uncertain, uncomfortable frown. He shook his head as if trying to shake his preceding thoughts loose and then turned, continuing on his way, putting XY and Bob Roth and this entire day behind him.

XY watched him go, noting the perfection that was the tight fit of his skinny jeans. He sighed again, lamenting the futility of his love life.

But then Luka slowed to a stop, fingers balling into fists, back muscles going taut as he seemed to struggle with something internal. Finally, with a huff, letting the tension go, Luka turned back around and tentatively approached.

His expression was shamefaced, his tone hesitant.

“Hey,” he breathed. “Sorry.”

XY blinked, mind scrambling to come up with an adequate response. “Oh. Uh. No. I wasn’t paying attention, so…”

Luka grimaced, fair skin easily showing a blush. “No. I meant…” He bit his lip, drawing XY’s gaze. “I meant sorry for more than just snapping at you right then. I meant…I’m sorry for today in general.”

Luka looked up, fighting off his shame and forcing himself to meet XY’s gaze and own up to his own shortcomings. “Yes, you and your father were in the wrong for plagiarizing, but I completely lost my cool when he threatened Marinette, and I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have let my anger get the better of me, but I did, and I’m sorry I lashed out at you.”

XY kept blinking as he stared into those cool blue eyes, sparkling like aquamarines even in the unflattering fluorescent light of the hallway. “Oh. Uh…thanks.”

A pained expression took over Luka’s face. “I don’t remember what happened, so I don’t know what I said, what I did to you, but I’m sorry for that too. I wasn’t in control, and I never would have done or said any of that if I had been, so I just want you to know that I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” XY admitted, trying to make Luka feel better and make himself out to be brave. “I mean, sure, I was a little uncomfortable when you tied me up and slung me over your shoulder—” XY would never admit that he’d kind of liked being carried and that the angle afforded him a splendid view of Luka’s tush in whatever skintight material the evil suit had been made out of. “—but it wasn’t anything compared to when Jagged’s akuma tied me up and made me stand out on a plank at the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

XY shrugged, pretending to be aloof and composed, hoping Luka would pick up on how cool XY was.

Luka’s mouth dropped open as he attempted to process himself slinging Xavier-Yves Roth over his shoulder and Jagged Stone dangling the pop star off the side of the Eiffel Tower.

“Oh,” Luka finally responded. “Wow. Okay. Well…sorry again. I’m glad it wasn’t that bad.”

XY smirked, voice full of bravado as he declared. “It was no sweat, really, so don’t worry about it.” Luka didn’t need to know that if XY had had his voice at the time, he would have been emitting high-pitched shrieks. “The worst part was losing an hour out of my day.”

“Uh… Well… Sorry for the inconvenience, then,” Luka offered, feeling conflicted about the way this conversation was going.

There was a beat, and it looked like Luka was turning to go when he abruptly stopped mid-rotation and asked, “Purely out of curiosity, why did you steal Kitty Section’s song and Marinette’s costumes? You’re a professional musician with your own established style. Why poach amateur work?”

XY crossed his arms defensively, looking away. “It wasn’t stealing.”

Luka’s eyes narrowed, and his fingers began to coil once more in indignance that even now XY refused to admit he’d done anything wrong.

“It was just inspiration,” XY corrected petulantly. “I couldn’t come up with anything that Dad thought would sell, so he said all we needed to do was let someone else do the work for us, so we went through the entries, and I made the song based off of yours…and Dad said it was good, that it would sell.” XY shrugged, wishing Luka would drop it.

Hadn’t Luka gotten to perform his version of the song on TV? Wasn’t that good enough? Why did he want to make XY’s day worse? Hadn’t enough bad things happened to XY already?

“You had writer’s block?” Luka inquired in exasperation. “So you decided to rip off somebody else?”

XY changed the cross of his arms and looked at Luka defiantly. “Dad said to. I was just doing what Dad said. He’s the best in the business—he has been for years—so I just trusted that he knew what he was talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Luka pursed his lips, trying to understand how a person could have their head so firmly in the sand to the point where they couldn’t acknowledge that they’d made a mistake. “But didn’t it _feel_ wrong playing someone else’s music? I put a lot of myself into my songs, little bits of life experience, the things that happen to me, the things I feel. I couldn’t imagine playing someone else’s music with the same intimacy that I play my own. Didn’t it feel wrong to play something that wasn’t yours?”

Deep trenches formed in XY’s forehead as he tried to comprehend Luka’s meaning. “No,” he answered bluntly. “I just…you know. I make music that’s catchy, sure to be popular. Repetitive. I don’t ‘put myself into the music’, so…it’s just…whatever, you know?”

Slowly, Luka began to nod as he started to understand where the disconnect was coming from. “I always thought your music sounded soulless.” He didn’t say it in a mean way. It didn’t sound like an insult, more like a realization, an epiphany.

XY still didn’t like it.

He crossed his arms harder and shifted his weight so that it rested on his right leg, making his hip jut out. “Okay, well, tell me how to ‘put myself into the music’, then, if you’re so great.”

Luka’s expression softened. “I’d hardly call myself great, but…if you really want to make authentic music, the first step is to stop caring so much about what sells.”

XY visibly recoiled.

Making marketable music was the catechism Bob Roth had drilled into his son from an early age, so Luka’s first step sounded like downright heresy.

“Seriously,” Luka chuckled (making XY’s body stand at attention because Luka was laughing, and that laughter was directed at _him_ ). “You’re an established musician with hundreds of thousands of fans. There are people who will buy whatever you put out, so it’s not like you have to be so rigid. You have some wiggle room to experiment, so stop thinking about what sells and think instead about what you like.”

“What I like,” XY repeated, feeling clueless.

Luka nodded. “Sure. What kind of music do _you_ like?”

XY bit his lip. “I don’t…I don’t really know.”

Luka’s eyebrows started to inch together. “Well…maybe figure that out first.”

“How?” XY challenged. If Luka was giving XY instructions, he wanted concert steps he could follow, none of this “figure it out” crap. XY was not much of a thinker. He couldn’t “figure it out” unless someone else explained it to him.

“Listen to a wide variety of music. Listen to classical, listen to folk music, rap, jazz, gamelan music, traditional Japanese shamisen and koto…listen to everything. Professionals, people busking in parks and in the subway, birdsong, the sound a bottle makes when you blow into it, children playing, passing cars, the wind in the trees, the sound of dropped coins, water splashing in a fountain. Listen until you find something that resonates with you,” Luka advised.

XY pursed his lips, furrowing his brow in confusion. “How will I know when it resonates with me?”

“You’ll know,” Luka assured. “You’ll feel it through your whole body. You’ll get really excited and want to share it with someone. You’ll know, and when you _do_ , try to make something like it—Not a _copy_ ,” Luka was quick to clarify.

“Don’t copy it note for note if it’s another piece of music. Just create whatever it inspires you to make. After you’ve done that the first time, you’ll understand the process better, and then you’ll be able to keep your ears open as you go about your day,” he insisted, seeing the skeptical look on XY’s face.

Luka smiled encouragingly. “Inspiration will come if you just keep your ears open. Maybe it will be a snatch of something someone in the street is humming or the sound of someone’s laughter or the buzz of cicadas or an intricate display in a shop window. It can be anything so long as it strikes a chord in you. Just be open to the sounds and sights around you, how they make you feel. Feelings can be inspiration too. Sometimes you need to throw in a [tritone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJIO-Jr0E8o) or a two to get across the tension and unease.”

“Triton?” XY repeated, feeling lost.

Luka shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. The important thing is to try to incorporate your feelings and the things you come across in your daily life that strike a chord with you into your music. Don’t worry about if it sells. Just use your experiences to make something that _you’re_ happy with. That’s what it means to ‘put yourself into the music’.”

XY’s fingers tightened around his bicep. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can do that. I’m not…” He looked away, mumbling, “I’m not very talented like that. I don’t have good ideas.”

Luka frowned. “I think your fans would disagree.”

XY blinked, surprised at the gentleness in Luka’s tone. He was so used to his father laughing and agreeing when XY commented upon how stupid or talentless he was. It had turned into a kind of sick inside joke, so it was jarring for the conversation to veer from the script he’d grown so accustomed to.

“It might be hard at first, but if you really want to make music that you yourself are happy with, you can do it. You’re already a professional musician with an eager audience. You don’t have to fight to get your music heard. Take the opportunity to experiment a little. Everyone has a song inside of them. You can find yours,” Luka encouraged.

XY’s insides melted.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had cheered him on like that, telling him that he could do something. Luka made it sound so simple, made him think he could actually do it, create music for himself. Luka had XY believing that he really could find his own song if he dug down deep for it, the music reverberating inside of him even before he decided to go into the music business to connect with his father and make Bob Roth happy.

XY’s heart fluttered. He wanted to get to know this guy better. He wanted to hear Luka talk more, watch Luka’s eyebrows and the corners of his mouth as they made the most interesting microexpressions, injecting so much unspoken meaning into the exchange.

The words, “Can I take you out for coffee?” were on the tip of XY’s tongue when a dressing room door down the hall opened, and the giant guy from Luka’s band stuck his head out, calling, “Hey, Luka, you coming?”

“Just a minute!” Luka replied and then turned back to XY with a smile XY wouldn’t soon forget.

“I’ve got to go, but good luck.” Luka visibly hesitated, biting his lip and crinkling his brow, before adding, “And maybe don’t listen to your dad all the time. You might one day regret the person he’s turned you into.”

Luka patted XY on the arm and turned to go. “I hope you find your song.”

XY’s skin burned through his signature jacket in the shape of Luka’s hand. On the inside, his brain was exploding into fireworks in the loveliest shades of blue and green. Luka’s eyes were indelibly stamped on the back of XY’s eyelids, their delicate blue glowing in a way XY knew he’d be seeing in his dreams.

Bob Roth ranted all during the long drive back to Le Grand Paris on the other side of town. Mostly it was a torrent of abuse directed toward Luka, Kitty Section, Chat Noir, and Ladybug, but there were some barbed comments about XY’s musical abilities and IQ as well.

XY sank down low in his seat, feeling miserable…until he thought of Luka.

Luka’s kind words, gentle smile…his expressive eyes, lyrical laugh.

_I hope you find your song._

For the first time in a long time, XY really wanted to. He wanted to make music for the sake of fun and not have to worry about whether it would stick in people’s ears and sell copies.

XY wanted Luka to hear the music he made and think it was good. He wanted to put himself in the music and have Luka think it was good…think _XY_ was good.

As soon as they made it back to their suite of rooms at the hotel, XY headed straight for the shower to avoid a further tirade from his father as well as to wash all of the product out of his hair.

He changed into less conspicuous skinny jeans, purple converse, and a white baseball shirt with purple, three-quarter length sleeves. He lost the blinged-out necklace advertising his identity, added oversized movie star sunglasses, and piled his long, blonde hair into a bun at the top of his head.

“I’m going out incognito, Dad,” he called as he made his way towards the door. “Back in a bit.”

Bob scoffed at his son’s appearance. “You look like [Man Bun Ken](https://www.google.com/search?q=man+bun+ken&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS779US779&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi298yF86zqAhXDGM0KHbdKAjEQ_AUoAXoECA0QAw&biw=1366&bih=625). Didn’t I tell you never to style your hair like that? What if someone sees you? It’ll ruin your image.”

XY shrugged. “They won’t recognize me. I’m not wearing my bling or my signature jacket. No one will know it’s me without the tall hair,” he assured, hustling out the door.

He ended up in the Place des Vosges, sitting in the shade of the trees at the base of the [Louis XIII statue](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P1000672_Paris_IV_Place_des_Vosges_statue_Louis_XIII_reductwk.JPG) with the weird tree trunk coming up through the middle of the horse.

Children were shrieking with joy as they played on the playground at the south-east corner of the park. The fountains were burbling, and XY could hear the indistinct, hypnotic murmur of people picnicking out on the grass. Birds sang, and someone was playing something jazzy on a saxophone under one of the arches of the brick underpass leading into the plaza. The notes echoed, reverberating out into the world.

The sun was slowly sinking, evening coming on with a vanguard of soft orange and yellow and rose-tinted light. The sky overhead was still blue. Blue, like Luka’s eyes, Luka’s hair, Luka’s clothing.

Blue.

Luka’s laugh, soft and self-conscious, bounced around inside of XY’s head like a song playing on repeat.

XY frowned, recalling Luka’s advice for creating authentic music. Hadn’t he said that XY could take inspiration from anywhere? Birdsong or dropped coins or someone’s laughter?

A melody started forming in XY’s mind, bouncing along to the cadence of Luka’s chuckle.

He hurried home and worked long into the dim hours of the dawn twilight on his song. It was nothing like when he’d made pieces focusing only on what would sell. That was formulaic and could be done, not in the five minutes he’d bragged to Alec about, but at least in one sitting. This, what he was doing now, making authentic music, was uncharted territory, and it took days of tweaking to get the song just right.

He called it Blue and presented it to his father the following weekend.

Bob Roth scoffed at it, saying that it was too obscure, too niche to sell to the masses, but that was okay with XY. _He_ was happy with his song…and he thought Luka might be too.

It had been hard but fun and satisfying to create something heartfelt, to put himself into the music. He decided, after that first song, to walk around with his ears open and create more authentic music.

He thought about trying to get in contact with Luka, but every time he was on the cusp of actually doing something about his crush, he lost his nerve. Luka was probably dating that Marinette girl. Besides, what would Luka and XY have in common? Luka was really smart; what would he see in XY? What would XY’s dad say? Bob Roth had told XY that he could only date women and that he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that he liked guys, so what was the point?

Time stretched on, and it eventually started to feel too random to go up to a guy he’d met once a year ago (two years ago, five years ago, seven years ago) and tell him what a difference he’d made in XY’s life, how XY had feelings for him, wanted to know him better.

XY settled for working on his music, creating something Luka would enjoy and respect. He secretly followed Kitty Section’s career and then Luka’s when he went solo. He attended almost every concert he could, incognito so as not to cause a scene. In private, he devoured Luka’s interviews, the photos posted on Instagram, the blog posts, the tweets.

He let his feelings smolder in secret for years until one night, ten years after they’d first met, XY and Luka attended the same party. He saw Luka’s name on the confirmed guestlist and put his plan into motion. His heart fluttered when he saw Luka there, standing off on his own. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and XY couldn’t help but take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's what Luka said to XY in the hallway after Silence that made XY fall in love and inspired him to explore his own style and make better music. ^.^ I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> You know, skimming back through Silence, I noticed that Alec and XY are tied up in the studio when Ladybug does her Miraculous Ladybug thing. At some point in time, Silence must have tracked them down and tied them up. Imagine poor XY cowering in fear, being terrified and then captured. The television studio is a really tall building. I’m sure XY was concerned about being dangled over the side of it just like when Jagged was akumatized and dangled him off the top of the Eiffel Tower. The guy probably has a thing about heights now. :/
> 
> Well, thanks for reading everyone. ^.^ I'll be back with the final chapter this Saturday, 07/04/2020. See you then!
> 
> References:  
> Tritone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJIO-Jr0E8o  
> Louis XIII Statue: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P1000672_Paris_IV_Place_des_Vosges_statue_Louis_XIII_reductwk.JPG


	8. Serenade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm still Mikau. ^.^ Welcome back for the final chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with me this far, and thank you especially to everyone who's left kudos or comments or bookmarked the story. I'm always so grateful for your support and encouragement.
> 
> I hope you enjoy today's chapter!

“I think that went pretty well,” Luka remarked, hoping that XY would agree, as they drove back from dinner with the Agreste-Dupain-Chengs.

It had been their second dinner with Luka’s family in the month since they’d been officially dating, and, in Luka’s opinion, it had gone fairly smoothly.

“Yeah, I think so,” XY responded laconically, eyes on the road.

“Hugo, for one, adores you,” Luka added, fishing for more feedback. “Adrien told me that he was asking when you could come over and play again, and he was so excited when Adrien told him you were coming for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, yeah?” XY chuckled, a wide grin spreading out on his lips. “Good. I’m glad he likes me. I like him too. He’s…he’s really great, Six-Strings.”

“I’m just glad you two get along…. You and Adrien seem to be warming up to one another too,” Luka observed, laughing as XY pulled a face. “Admit it. You’re growing on each other.”

XY shrugged. “He’s all right. He just…he really rubs it in, how close you two are.”

Luka’s amusement dissipated quickly into a frown. “Prune, did he say something to you?”

XY shook his head. “No. He’s been perfectly nice. It’s just…little things. The way he looks at you, the little touches, little brushes of shoulders, hands, the inside jokes…stuff like that. He doesn’t pass up an opportunity to remind me that he was there first.”

Luka pursed his lips and considered his response for a solid minute before giving it. “You know, I don’t think that Adrien’s behavior is really directed at you in any way. I think it’s more about his own insecurity.”

XY quirked an eyebrow even as his eyes remained locked in the forward position. “Him? Insecure? What’s he got to be insecure about?”

“…His whole life, Adrien’s father has been berating him and telling Adrien all the ways he isn’t good enough.”

XY’s shoulders tensed as a pang of sympathy shot through him.

Luka let the statement hang there for a bit until he was sure it had sunk in. “Before you, Adrien always wanted me to move in with them, be an official part of the family. He’s happy that I’m happy, but he’s not happy that _you’re_ the one making me happy. I think he’s afraid of losing me, so try to be nice to him, please, and not take anything he does too hard.”

XY nodded slowly. “So…he feels like I’m a threat?”

“Probably,” Luka sighed, seeing that it would take a lot of time and hard work to keep up with the various moving pieces that were his love life. He was willing to put the effort in, though.

“I know it’s difficult,” Luka acknowledged, “but try not to focus too much on how much longer I’ve known Adrien. You and I are building our own memories together, and, before you know it, we’ll be ten years in the future exchanging little glances and sharing inside jokes and kidding around about things from the past.”

XY’s heart warmed just imagining it.

“Let’s just enjoy where we are in our relationship in the here and now and not worry so much about my relationships with Marinette or Adrien. I know that’s hard, but…” Luka reached out and rested a hand on XY’s thigh, squeezing lightly.

XY nodded. “Okay. Yeah. I…I don’t think it’s ever going to be easy sharing you with them, but…I’m happy with you, so…”

Luka leaned across the console and placed a butterfly kiss on XY’s cheek. “Thanks for putting up with me.”

XY scoffed. “You aren’t the problem. Putting up with _Adrien_ is the hard part.”

“He’ll be easier once he gets to know you better,” Luka assured. “You’ve only met four or five times.”

Six times. Once at Luka’s apartment that fateful day, twice for dinner with the Agreste-Dupain-Chengs, three times for coffee chaperoned by Hugo and Luka.

“Yeah,” XY reluctantly agreed. “You’re probably right. He’s not awful besides being all touchy-clingy with you, so…maybe one day we’ll be friends. It was fun tonight talking with him about Chopin.”

Luka breathed a quiet sigh of relief, beginning to rub his thumb back and forth slowly on XY’s thigh. “Thank you for trying.”

XY shrugged, playing it off nonchalantly. “If it’s what I’ve got to do to make my man happy, I’ll make friends with the pretty boy…. At least his jokes are hilarious.”

Luka groaned. “Marinette and I were both kind of horrified tonight when you and Adrien started punning at one another. I think she’s going to punish me for introducing you two.”

The teasing expression quickly fell from XY’s face. “Marinette still doesn’t like me.”

“She will eventually. Just give her time, Xavier-Yves,” Luka soothed. “Adrien is forgiving to a fault, even things that other people would find unforgiveable, but Marinette takes a little more time. She doesn’t know you well, so she’s still wary. She’ll come around. She’s got a good heart, and she’s kind and understanding, so it’s only a matter of time before she realizes it’s ridiculous to hold you accountable for something your father did ten years ago. Give her time. She’ll realize that you’re not the person she thinks you are.”

XY pursed his lips, flipping on his turn signal. “Yeah. I hope so. It would make everything easier if we all could get along…especially with another baby on the way.”

Luka blew out a slow breath, giving XY’s thigh another squeeze before retracting his hand. “Yeah. Seeing you and Hugo getting along so well has done a lot to soften Adrien up towards you. I’m hoping Marinette will go the same way. If she just had a little bit more free time to get to know you…”

“We’ll get there,” XY promised, taking a turn at reassuring Luka.

There was a comfortable stretch of silence, and then XY got up the courage to ask, “…Do you think…that the baby is yours? Adrien seems to think so.”

Luka bit his lip. “Statistically? Probably.” He hesitated. “…Do you know what the word ‘asexual’ means?”

XY frowned, eyes flickering to Luka for a second before going back to the road. “Someone who doesn’t have sex?”

Luka rolled his lip back and forth between his teeth, trying to think of the best way to explain. “It’s more…asexual people don’t experience sexual desire. It’s kind of like how I told you I’m demi, so I don’t experience sexual desire for someone until I have an emotional connection with them, until I feel like I’m in love. Asexual people fall in love but never experience that sexual desire. Some can and do have sex out of love for their partners, to make their partners happy, but asexual people don’t have that need for sex like other people do.”

“Okay,” XY replied, nodding slowly. “Okay. I think I get it, but…why exactly are we talking about this?”

“Adrien is asexual,” Luka sighed. “He and Marinette have figured out ways of compromising and making things work for them over the years, and they _do_ do a variety of physically intimate things, but it’s rare that they do it in a way that would get Marinette pregnant. If Marinette’s pregnant, statistically, the baby is mine.”

XY’s eyes went wide. “Oh. All right…. Okay…. And…how do you feel about the baby being yours?”

A wide grin stretched Luka’s lips from one side of his face to the other. He put a hand over his mouth as he laughed, giddy at the thought. “Ecstatic? I love Hugo so much, and the prospect of another child is…I just wish I could be more a part of their everyday lives. I wish I could be a better father. Growing up, I didn’t…” Luka choked at the memories of the man he had called “Father” abandoning them when Luka was ten. “…I just want to do better for my own kids. I know they have Adrien, but—”

“—Luka,” XY cut him off, removing one hand from the steering wheel to take hold of Luka’s. “You’re a good dad. Trust me. Hugo’s a happy kid, and he loves you to pieces. I know it’s not ideal, but you’re making it work. You’re doing a good job.”

Luka swallowed hard as tears started to stream down his cheeks. “…Y-Yeah?”

“Yeah,” XY stressed, giving Luka’s hand another squeeze before letting go to return it to the wheel. “Yeah, you are, and we’re going to figure out some way for you to do even better with this next kid. We’ve got five months to come up with a plan of how we can make you feel like a better father this next time. We’ll figure this out.”

Luka rubbed at his face with both hands, scrubbing away the tears. He nodded, taking heart in XY’s conviction. “Thank you. I can’t even tell you how much your support means to me, Xavier-Yves.”

“It’s okay, Six-Strings,” XY assured, a proud smile making his lips curl up at the edges. It felt good to be able to do something for someone he cared about. “I’ve got you.”

The car became quiet as XY signaled that he was about to parallel park in the tiny space between two other cars on the side of the street out front of Luka’s flat.

Luka bit his lip as XY started to back the car into the space. “Xavier-Yves?”

“Hm?” XY hummed as he craned his neck to watch what he was doing out the back side window.

“How do _you_ feel about the baby coming?” Luka had to wonder. He knew that XY genuinely liked Luka, and he knew that XY got along well with Hugo, but he wasn’t sure how XY felt about his boyfriend having a baby on the way with other people.

“Excited,” XY chuckled, a big, goofy grin coming to his lips. “I love kids, and watching you with Hugo is always super hot. I’m down for more of that. I’m happy for the things that make you happy,” he added in such an honest, unrehearsed tone.

Luka’s heart melted a little at the realization that his boyfriend really was amazing. He’d found one of the good ones.

The original plan had been to head back to Luka’s flat for a movie and a night of snuggling after dinner with the Agreste-Dupain-Chengs, but they decided to skip the movie and head straight to bed.

As they wrestled around on top of the sheets, the kiss got hotter and more frantic. Clothing articles started to hit the floor, and XY pulled back, needing to do a status check before Luka’s urgency gave XY the wrong idea about where this was headed.

“Hey, Luka?” he gasped.

“Ngh,” Luka grumbled, lifting his head to try to reconnect his lips with XY’s.

“Do you…love me?” XY tentatively whispered.

Luka froze, some clarity coming back into his eyes.

“I mean, it’s okay if your feelings aren’t there yet,” XY assured, genuinely meaning it. “It’s just that, if they’re not, we should probably slow things down before I get too worked up.”

Luka looked away, a funny feeling roiling around in his gut. He swallowed. “It’s…It’s not just what I feel.”

Because if it were solely based on Luka’s feelings for XY, Luka had been ready to make love to his boyfriend for going on two weeks now. The problem was that Luka wasn’t sure of XY’s feelings for _him_. Yes, Luka knew that XY was completely in earnest, but…he couldn’t help but worry that this was going to get old for XY eventually. XY could do a lot better than Luka with all of his baggage. XY was a treasure who could make someone an amazing partner, and one day XY was going to shake off the self-doubt inflicted upon him by his father and figure that out. Once that happened, he’d leave Luka, and then what would Luka do?

It was better to hold back, keep XY at arm’s length, keep himself from falling too far so that—

“—Six-Strings,” XY called, gently taking Luka’s face by the chin and turning his head so that he’d be forced to meet XY’s gaze. “Get out of your own head and talk to me. If it’s not just about what you’re feeling, then what is it about? I know I don’t always get things right away, but try me. Explain it. You’re good at explaining things so that I get them, and I want to get this, okay?”

Luka bit his lip, studying XY’s face for a moment before slowly beginning to nod. “It’s not just a matter of whether _I’m_ in love. Once I get to that level with someone, my body starts responding, and I start to want to go further physically, but…”

XY was frowning down at him, furrowing his brow so hard, hanging on Luka’s every word in an attempt to understand. “But what? You’re saying that…you _have_ started to think about me like that, but there’s another problem?”

Luka averted his eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”

XY tried to contain the trill of excitement and joy that rushed through his body at that one-word admission.

Luka loved him. _Loved_ him. But he couldn’t get carried away just yet. There was still a problem to solve.

“So what’s wrong? What else needs to happen?” he pressed, eager to resolve the issue.

Luka chewed nervously on the inside of his lip. “I…only sleep with people who are in love with me.”

XY arched an eyebrow. “You think I don’t love you?”

“No. Yes?” He looked back at XY, searching his lagoon-like eyes in the dark. “I don’t know. I’m…I’m not saying that what you feel for me isn’t real or good enough. I know that you do truly care about me. I know that things between us are serious, we’re both serious, but…I’m…”

“You’re?” XY prompted, reaching down to stroke Luka’s face from his hairline to his jaw.

Luka swallowed. “I’m scared you’re going to move on. It’s been four months, more or less, since things between us started, and I’m afraid that you’re going to get fed up with me and all the crap I put you through and find someone who doesn’t have a pair of lovers and two kids in tow, someone who can love just you. I don’t want to get attached just to lose you.”

XY pushed himself up, extended an arm, and stretched to reach his phone on the nightstand. “Come on,” he coaxed, scooting up to the head of the bed to prop himself up on the pillows. He patted the bed beside him.

Luka frowned but crawled up to the top of the bed to snuggle up to XY’s side. “What are we doing?”

“I’m proving that I love you and I’m not likely to stop loving you any time soon so there’s nothing to be afraid of,” XY reported matter-of-factly, so certain, so sure of himself.

Luka rested his head on XY’s shoulder and peered curiously as XY thumbed through his phone to find a song.

XY’s finger hovered over a track called Blue.

He pursed his lips, hesitating. “I kind of wrote a song about you. It’s sort of amateurish, and Dad said it wouldn’t sell, but…I was inspired by your laugh,” he explained, nuzzling Luka’s hair. “I was having a bummer day, feeling like my life got all flipped on its side, so I went to the Place des Vosges, and I was sitting listening to the birds and the other people and feeling the sun on my skin and thinking about you and your laugh and your eyes and how you made me feel and…” He took a deep breath and pressed on the song. “This is what I came up with.”

Luka closed his eyes and listened hard, letting the notes wash over him.

It wasn’t a good song, honestly. It was really repetitive and not like XY’s music that Luka had listened to recently. The melody never really evolved into something transcendent but, rather, kept going with minor changes here and there. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the music XY had been making when he and Luka had first met, though.

It was a little confused and not skillful, but there was something in the song, a glimmer of promise, a spark of inspiration. Luka could feel a little piece of XY in the music, and it made him smile. There was real feeling in the music, real emotion.

Luka could hear the laughter, feel the warmth XY felt for his subject. It was by no means well done, but Luka could see the imagery XY had been trying to evoke. The sun was setting in a lovely smear of warm shades, and the birds were twittering to one another as they flew overhead. The wind blew, carrying the echoes of a [jazzy saxophone](https://youtu.be/OsdWqGaGAw8?t=457) in from the distance.

Children played not far away, reminiscent of Mussorgsky’s [Tuileries (Children Quarreling at Play)](https://youtu.be/s8z1_A-Zlbw?t=582) from Pictures at an Exhibition without seeming to be aware of the existence of the piece. There were no quotations from Mussorgsky’s work, but XY’s song felt similar in some respects, capturing the essence of the children, their laughter and squawks intermingling with the main theme of Luka’s laughter.

And XY had gotten Luka’s soft, self-conscious laugh just right.

It wasn’t a good song, but it was an earnest song. The feelings in the music got across to Luka, and that was the important part.

“That was really sweet,” Luka hummed as the song came to an end. He turned his head to give his boyfriend’s neck a smooch. “You wrote this for me? What’s it called?”

XY chuckled, giving Luka a squeeze. “It’s called Blue. It wasn’t so much _for_ you as about you, inspired by you. You were the one who made me believe I could write it.”

“It was interesting,” Luka remarked, keeping his criticisms to himself. It was obviously an experiment, and that was okay. Luka experimented too, and it wasn’t like the song was bad. Luka knew his boyfriend was a talented musician who could do better, but there was no reason to say so when XY had literally immortalized Luka’s laugh in music. It was a romantic gesture, and Luka appreciated it.

“It sounds kind of like your old style,” he added thoughtfully. “Thinking of experimenting with retro techniques?”

XY shook his head. “Luka,” he answered tenderly, “I wrote this song ten years ago.”

“You…what?” Luka pushed himself up to sitting so that he could look at XY’s face.

XY shrugged and smiled simply. “I wrote this the day I met you. I was super bummed about how things went down and my dad calling me an idiot on live TV and getting tied up and having to deal with my dad’s bad mood over the whole thing, so I went to the park to get some space and think, but I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

Luka blushed. “Did I really make that much of an impression? I mean, I kind of blew up at you. I wouldn’t expect you to have a very good opinion of me after that.”

XY slipped his hand into Luka’s and gave it a squeeze. “It was what you said afterward in the hall outside the dressing rooms when you found out I’d ripped off your song because I had writer’s block.”

Luka frowned, finally willing to admit, “I don’t remember. That day is kind of a blur. I was wiped after the akumatization, so I sort of remember bumping into you in the hall, but I don’t recall what I said. Sorry.”

XY looked a little disappointed but shrugged and kept smiling. “It’s okay, Six-Strings. No worries. You told me how you got inspiration from everything around you just by keeping your ears open. You taught me about putting myself into the music and told me that I could make authentic music too if I put the work in.”

“I did?” Luka responded softly, straining his memory to call up the hazy scene.

XY nodded, his goofy grin making a reappearance. “I think that was the first time someone told me I could make music just for fun and that was okay. I don’t get a lot of encouragement, so you telling me you thought I could make good music like you did…that meant a lot.”

“And then you made that song?” Luka demanded, heart starting to beat a syncopated rhythm as he began to put the pieces together. “That same day?”

XY rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I got the idea and started working on it that day. It took me, like, a week to get it how I wanted it. It was hard. I didn’t spend that much time on my music before that. I didn’t _care_ so much before that.”

“Xavier-Yves,” Luka breathed in a hushed, awed tone. “That’s _amazing_. The fact that that was your first attempt and you did so well…” He shook his head, a wide grin spreading over his face. “I am _so_ proud of eighteen-year-old Xavier-Yves.”

XY’s face heated up, and he looked away, unable to keep his own blazing smile under wraps. “Yeah?”

“Definitely. You did such an awesome job. It’s killer, Prune.”

XY laughed at Luka using the expression “killer”. “It’s not _that_ good. It’s not like what I can do now.”

“No, but that’s not the point.” Luka waved away XY’s protests. “The point is, on your first try, you hit it out of the park. I wish I could have heard it back then and encouraged you more. I’m sure your dad didn’t.”

XY winced. “No. No, he didn’t, but…it’s okay. I just remembered you telling me as you turned to go that you hoped I found the song inside of me, and…that was enough. My dad was only interested in what would sell, but you told me to find what _I_ liked, so…I just kept trying to make stuff that I was happy with, hoping that I could show it to you one day and maybe that you’d like it.”

“Oh, Prune,” Luka cooed, leaning in for a sweet, closed-mouth kiss. “I’m so proud of you. I’m so glad you put the hard work in and found your music.”

“Thanks,” XY chuckled, stroking Luka’s cheek. “It means a lot to me, it really does, Six-Strings, but making you proud isn’t why I showed you that song.”

“Oh,” Luka whispered.

“I was proving that I loved you and that I was going to keep loving you for a long time,” XY reminded.

Luka’s whole face started to burn. “Ten years. You’ve had feelings for me this whole time?”

XY nodded, tussling Luka’s hair. “I thought you were hot when you and Marinette came to confront Dad and me, so when you encouraged me with my music and really seemed to believe in me, I just toppled over the cliff for you. I’ve been following your career ever since. I came to Kitty Section concerts back when you guys played in parks and took donations instead of charging admission. I watched all your interviews and bought all your fan merch. I had a monster fanboy crush on you for _years_.”

“And your crush wasn’t destroyed when you met me in person again?” Luka laughed, unable to believe what he was hearing.

XY shook his head fondly. “You really have zero self-esteem, My Love.”

Luka’s insides turned to hot goo at the epithet, and he let out a little squeak of, “No?”

“In person, you only made me love you more,” XY assured.

“Even after the whole mishap with finding out about Marinette and Adrien last month?” Luka couldn’t quite get himself to believe it.

XY gave Luka’s nose a playful bop. “I love you more and more every day, you goof. Here. Listen to the song I wrote for you last week. See if it clears anything up. It’s called Epiphany in Blue.”

Luka snuggled back up against XY’s side as the song started to play. He closed his eyes and let the stark, vulnerable notes swirl around him.

The music was a lot more raw and exposed than other songs he had heard by XY. The sound was different too. It was all still digital, but instead of the usual synthetic beats, the melody was carried by an electric violin singing an aching song of longing and want that reminded Luka a little bit of the [mournful theme](https://youtu.be/oLWpgWuUaU4?t=925) in the Second Movement of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”.

The song got a little bit more hopeful as more digitized instruments joined in, playing a motif Luka recognized as his laugh from the previous song, Blue.

An easy [bossa nova beat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lhxvpmldek) started up, eventually transforming into a triumphant, exuberant, [soaring melody](https://youtu.be/oLWpgWuUaU4?t=2102) that burst like a firework into being with horns, strings, and woodwinds all blazing.

The song slowly wound down into a content bossa nova once more, ending on a soft, affectionate reiteration of the laugh motif.

Luka took his time opening his eyes, feeling totally overwhelmed by the emotions swirling within him.

XY gently wiped Luka’s tears from his cheeks and pressed an undemanding kiss to the side of Luka’s head. “You always say that you talk better with your instrument, but…I don’t know if I was able to really get across my feelings in the song. What did you think?”

Luka sat up and pulled XY in, smashing their lips together in a heated answer, letting his frantic movements speak for him.

A few minutes later when Luka did break away, he gasped, “I love you…. I love you…so, so much…. And I want to keep loving you for as long as you’ll have me.” He swallowed as he looked deep into XY’s eager eyes. “And you feel the same, don’t you?”

He didn’t need to ask. He already knew.

XY nodded, a deliriously happy smile stuck to his lips. “I’d like to keep loving you forever, if that’s okay?”

“Forever is wonderful,” Luka confirmed, pulling XY back into the kiss.

The

End

Epilogue

XY and Adrien gradually get to know one another and become friends. They enjoy each other’s sense of humor and love pranking one another. Eventually, they decide that the best way for Luka to feel like a better father is for Luka to be more present in the kids’ lives. Adrien wins Marinette over regarding having Luka move in with them. They buy a bigger house, and Marinette, Adrien, Luka, and XY all move in together just in time for Emma to be born. They each have their own rooms so that they have private space for work and hobbies. Adrien and Marinette have a bedroom, and Luka and XY have a bedroom. Adrien and Luka float between beds.

Adrien doesn’t become romantically involved with XY, but they do become snuggle buddies, since they both suffer from an affection deficit from their childhoods, and the two occasionally work together to gang up on and take care of Luka. Sometimes Adrien and XY tell people that they’re brothers because that’s how they grow to think of one another.

Marinette and XY eventually become friends, but nothing romantic happens between them. Tom and Sabine unofficially adopt XY, so XY finally gets to have the parents he deserves.

XY adores children, and he does a great job with Emma once she’s born and Louis too a couple years later. Hugo and XY become fast friends. The kids call him Uncle Xavier-Yves, but they introduce him to people as their third dad, and that makes XY melt on the inside. They all live happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it necessary to tell you that, technically, the Agreste-Dupain-Cheng house is a ten-minute walk from Luka’s flat in the sixteenth arrondissement, so it wouldn’t take that long for XY to drive between the two. Perhaps he’s driving slowly so everyone can see his awesome car and circling the block as they talk. XD
> 
> I was going to do the epilogue as an end note like I usually do, but it was kind of long, so I decided to put it in the main text of the work, even though it's not actually in my usual narrative prose writing style. ^.^; If that makes sense. It's really just an end note, but it's a glorified end note.
> 
> Anyway. What did you think of the story? Did you like it? What did you like about it? What did you not like about it? Would you be interested in seeing more LuXY content in the future? Did you have a favourite part of this chapter or of the story? A favourite line? A favourite scene? A favourite character? What could have been better? What did you think of XY's songs about Luka? Did you check out the links? (I'm so grateful that readers taught me how to link to time stamps on YouTube.) I don't know why I'm on a bossa nova kick lately. That just happened. ^.^;
> 
> Anyway. I hope you enjoyed the story. Thank you very much for giving this a chance. I hope to see you again soon!
> 
> References:  
> Jazzy Saxophone: https://youtu.be/OsdWqGaGAw8?t=457  
> Tuileries/Children Quarreling: https://youtu.be/s8z1_A-Zlbw?t=582  
> Dvořák Mournful Theme: https://youtu.be/oLWpgWuUaU4?t=925  
> Bossa Nova: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lhxvpmldek  
> Dvořák Fourth Movement: https://youtu.be/oLWpgWuUaU4?t=2102

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr: https://mikauzoran.tumblr.com/


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